Pictured above is one of my latest Syracuse University themed gear purchases (themed? stamped? branded?), a beany hat I wear that is perfect for cold spring days, with temps hereabouts varying between twenty-eight and seventy degrees. Snowflakes were falling as I began writing this piece last week. Walking the dog that day I had on my SU beanie, my SU stretch side-pocket leggings, and an SU fleece in bright-ass orange. Am I mad for SU or SU sports’ teams? No. Not at all. I did attend SU so my wearing this stuff is an authentic choice, I guess? People who – years after graduating – continue to organize tail gate parties or attend numerous alumni functions baffle me, as I don’t have that particular need, interest, identification or loyalty – whatever it is. I had to laugh as I exited the house because, here I am, decked out like a real fan, derived from the word fanatic. Fanatic. Which I am not, not about SU the institution, as a center of college sports, as my alma mater, or anything else.
People love their tribes. I avoid them like the plague, generally, because belonging to any group, club, organization, what have you, feels like boxing myself in – and why the heck would I ever do that? One of my several recurring nightmares from childhood was that I was being buried alive, thanks largely to the film ‘Premature Burial’ staring Ray Milland, which I saw as a ten-year-old the week before Halloween. So, no, no, no boxes, please, and no tribal affiliations either. The only ‘tribes’ I claim are feminist and Democrat, and both of those are famously diverse, fractious and organized on a scattershot basis, just like the fractious Mueller fan-dam-ly from which I spring. Ah, the Muellers. What a bunch. What characters! What a – family.
The real motivation behind all that SU gear? It simplifies my life. I don’t and never have cared all that much about clothes, don’t like shopping, therefore going on the SU Bookstore website and browsing among items for useful garments distills shopping down to a couple of clicks. Simple = good. And, orange is a great color, especially when walking on country roads in rural America, and if you’ve never read Stephen Kings account of so doing, I highly recommend it, and link it here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/19/on-impact )
Simple is good. ‘Men’s’ pants and shorts – which I have been buying and wearing for over forty years – are also good, mostly because unlike the vast majority of designed and marketed to women’s pants and shorts, they have great pockets. They’re also a lot more durable, literally built to last longer. Women want and need pockets; women want and need and deserve clothing that is durable. I also like to wear men’s boxers in summer as shorts because they’re capacious, 100% cotton for coolness, often in great colors, and they don’t ride up my hips or bum like “Ladies’ panties”, which I gave up in college. I choose comfort over all other concerns, and yes, of course, there are exceptions, although it’s been so long since I wore heels, the last time I did – for a wedding in May of 2022, it was an exercise in the power of mind over matter, and by matter, I mean mind over real live physical discomfort after about 4 hours of standing and walking around, most of it on stone floors. To think I once enjoyed – really enjoyed – those occasional events requiring a slip, pantyhose, and heels. Feh. I noticed one of the groom’s aunties had flats on, flats as in Converse low-rise sneakers, in a fabulous bright color. Genius. File under: Next Time.
I know that two of my more glam adjacent girlfriends think I dress like a slob. They’re both in professions that require a heightened style of dress: high-end NYC real estate, and Southern California business consulting. I do as well, think that I’m a tad slob-o-don-y, but I love my practical, slob-o-don garb. I remember a woman I knew slightly, as a dog owner only, accosting me in Central Park ages ago, saying, “What are you wearing!?!” She was dressed to the nines, with full-on make-up at 6:30 a.m., which I assumed was for work and also, I suspect, because dog walks were famous for bringing about romances between dog owners. But whatever her thing was, I said, “It’s 6:30 in the morning. Why do you care?’ I was wearing, I recall exactly, men’s boxers and my favorite Fire Department tee-shirt – so soft, 100% cotton and nice and loose – in burgundy. And flip flops. Did I have a boob-sling on? Maybe. Maybe not. It was hotter than hot out, and again, comfort first, peeps. My best, best friends, including the glam adjacent, are my friends in part because even if their eyes pop slightly at my lack of sartorial panache, they know better than to comment, or try to fix what ain’t fucking broken.
Clothing – the length or width of a skirt, the height and shape of a collar, neckline or sleeve – has been used to control, distract, hamper, and impoverish women since forever. The fashion industry, long dominated by male designers and owners while enriching mostly male stockholders, reflects our culture as a whole, and is not, in my opinion, very female forward, although that is changing, at a glacial pace, if you think glacial pre-global-warming era slow. Give. Us. Pockets.
Still, I acknowledge that my own sense of ‘fashion’, my penchant for men’s trousers and SU garb, is not only because simple is good, but because my experience of clothes, and shopping, as a girl-child led me to take a route I might otherwise not have taken. Who knows; that winding country road has and continues to be traveled, but it began not far from where I sit today, in the house I lived in with my own special mother dearest. Perennially obese with a penchant for combining sweatshirt tops and pearls over black stretch-pants, she didn’t want to buy me clothes; she didn’t want to spend money on me, period, and, especially after I hit puberty, she just wouldn’t. Like the patriarchal culture we live in, momma used her power in the consumer clothing lane to control and punish me, attempting to make me into someone I was not: a pliable, compliant, super feminine girlie girl. It is worth noting that her definition of feminine meant not speaking unless spoken to, no interest in athletics or boys (unless they were Catholic), and no pursuits that weren’t centered on the home. That I loved being outdoors, and swimming, was a talented athlete in general was considered un-ladylike in the extreme by the woman who gave birth to me. My sisters were much more in her wheelhouse of what was appropriately feminine as they weren’t good at sports (I believe my older sister skipped gym class for all 4 years of high school), spent 99% of their time sequestered in their rooms rather than wandering and playing in the woods, which I did all the time. My eldest sister was given carte blanche when it came to spending money on clothes, which weirdly also included two wigs at one point.
Thrift shopping, my mommy dearest work around, where I could spend my own, earned money, saved me, but I would never claim I was ever able to deck myself out as a result. I even occasionally have picked up perfectly good SU gear while thrifting. Not to mention a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress, made in Italy, the real thing, a slew of gorgeous cashmere scarves and sweaters, corduroys from L.L. Bean, Ralph Lauren, and Ann Taylor, Peck and Peck sweaters and made in Scotland wool skirts, sweaters and pants, items able to withstand the weather, weather like today, 40 degrees out and rainy.
Clothes. Such fun. Ephemeral. Necessary. If ‘the clothes make the man’ (vestis virum facit), what do clothes do for or to women? Another endless subject, with so many sideroads, alleys and dead-end lanes, providing plenty of fodder for another day or days. Women are not decorative plates on the walls of men’s lives, or in the gaze of our families, culture, institutions and even other women. You don’t have to dress ‘like a girl’, in pink and pale blue or whatever ‘this year’s color’ is. One of my continual frustrations when I do go beyond my narrow on-line shopping lane is looking for the bold colors I love but getting fed a steady diet of ‘heather-ed’ pastels. Make it stop, please!!!! As writer and blogger Erin McKean wrote in 2006, a quote often mistakenly attributed to fashion icon Diana Vreeland, “You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female’.”
Vestimenta sunt milier, which, translated from the Latin, means clothes are not the woman. My new motto? Perhaps.
This photo is of is my grandmother, Marjorie Davidson, on the left, and her sister Martha, the elder by two years, circa 1894 or ’95. I love this picture because I love – loved – my grandmother, and because of the look of fierceness on Great Aunt Martha’s face, at least as I see it. I like to imagine that, as the older sister, Martha would have defended her little sis with all her might, but it could be that the photographer was socially inept, didn’t know how to treat little girls, or maybe he kept insisting she sparkle or smile, in which case I know exactly how she felt: men have been telling me to smile for years, and I have perfected a truly frightening grimace in response.
These sisters, Martha and Marjorie, were the best of friends their entire lives, although those lives took significantly different paths, and my grandmother outlived her beloved sister by over twenty years, living to be almost ninety-eight. My sense was that their parents were enlightened, good people, who loved all of their children, and were respected and loved in return. Martha and Marjorie were educated beyond what was much more conventional for the time; after graduating from high school in Monticello, N.Y, they attended Oneonta and Albany Normal Colleges, respectively, and they both went on to teach, Martha for many years in the Oneonta School District, in Otsego County, New York, and Marjorie on the eastern end of Long Island, in the Hampton Bay S. D.
I don’t know how my great aunt met her future husband, Ward Woolheaver, but I know she waited many years to marry him because in true gothic novel fashion, he was married already, with a wife in a mental institution, a wife he would not divorce her in her diminished and vulnerable state. And so, having met and fallen in love they waited, until after many years the first Mrs. W passed away, and Ward was free to wed. By then Martha was in her fifties, and I believe Ward was at least a decade older. From all reports, my grandmother’s, my dad’s, and my mom’s, Ward and Martha had a great life together, buying a home in Franklin, New York, where they loved to socialize with friends and family. It wasn’t a long marriage, however, as both of the pair were very heavy smokers; I clearly remember Martha wreathed in a cloud of smoke, with a long, schmancy cigarette holder, upswept hair, and chunky bracelets. So stylish, I thought, even if I also thought I was going to die when she visited: along with my dad’s pipe, fresh air inside our house during those dinners was in very short supply. Her husband, Ward, died first, I’m not sure what year, but I know that Aunt Martha lived alone for at least a decade – moving to a ground floor apartment in Oneonta – before succumbing to lung cancer in 1968.
I do know that my grandmother met my grandfather when he returned from World War I to finish his high school education. She was his Latin and physics teacher, and by the time he completed his schooling, he was almost twenty-three, and she was almost twenty-six, and they’d fallen in love. She urged him to go on to college, he was so bright, but his dream was to farm, so she left teaching to become a farmer’s wife. According to my dad’s first cousin (and mine once-removed, I think is how it works), my grandmother worked harder on the farm than three hired hands put together, and I believe it. Her husband, my grandfather, was an extremely difficult man she loved a lot, as did I, a man who was volatile and abusive, expecting absolute obedience from his wife and children. He was insecure and ego driven in a way she was not, picking fights whenever and wherever he could, at home, and in public. He didn’t know how to be loved; he feared it. His favorite brother, Fred, had died suddenly at eighteen, going septic from a scratch on his cheek, one minute perfectly vital and alive, then dead less than forty-eight hours later. I don’t think my grandfather, sixteen at the time, ever recovered from the loss. Like Marjorie and Martha, the brothers had been best friends, and I’ve often wondered if he felt that Fred, who he and everyone else had loved, haunted every room in the construct of his own much more difficult temperament.
But I digress.
My grandparents married in 1921, and bought the farm the same year, where they grew cauliflower and kept dairy cows until retiring in the mid-fifties. Their fourth child, my uncle Jay, was born in 1926; he joined an older brother, and two older sisters, Bill, Betty and Martha, at home in New Kingston, the latter named after my grandmother’s sister. Aunt Martha visited to meet baby Jay at the farm in 1926 or possibly even 1927. I’m not sure; the roads were less traveled, and much less travelable back in the day, thus what is a forty-minute ride to Oneonta now was at least ninety minutes back then, if the weather was clear.
Great Aunt Martha wasn’t a huge fan of her brother-in-law, and from what I’ve heard, and the little I remember, the feeling was entirely mutual. Still, she very much loved her baby sister, prioritizing that relationship by keeping in touch through letters and calls, while making visits to the farm whenever she could, and could stomach putting up with her sister’s bully of a husband, always trying to pick a fight. Unlike her sister, Martha had not learned, nor would she ever learn, that when it came to her kid sister’s husband it might be better to keep her tongue behind her teeth. Still defending her sister, Martha picked fights right back at him, and for that, I am deeply grateful. You go girl.
As the story went, visiting the farm in ‘27, and after examining and exclaiming over baby Jay, Great Aunt Martha said to my grandfather, ‘Well, I hope that’s it, Bill.’
‘What do you mean Martha?’
‘I said, I hope that’s it. I hope you’re going to give Marge a rest.’
‘What does that mean, Martha? Give her a rest?’
And where was grandma at this stage? Tending to the baby? Hiding out in the kitchen or living room? From many other confrontations I witnessed between my grandfather and any one of his many sworn enemies (a long list that included my mother), I believe she would be sitting right there witnessing it all, giving nothing away, a female embodiment of the Rock of Gibraltar, albeit a rock with a slight smile on its face. (You go girl.)
‘I mean: I hope this is it. As in no more children.’
Nine months later, maybe ten, my father was born.
All hail Great Aunt Martha! Without you, I would not be here, you darling, pugnacious little girl, you loving sister, you fight picker, you marvel of a woman. You, Martha the First, rejecter of sparkle. All hail!
“The Dalai Lama say that the world will be saved by Western woman. Not any women, perhaps not all women, but Burning Women. Women who have stepped out of silence and into the fullness of their power. Angry women who love the world and her creatures too much to let it be destroyed so thoughtlessly for a moment longer.
Burning woman is the heart and soul of revolution – inner and outer. She burns for change, she dances in the fire of the old, all while visioning and weaving the new.” ~ Lucy H. Pearce
*the future is female, as is more of the past than I was aware – by which I mean I have been following several spaces that celebrate women in the arts, science, culture and elsewhere, and I am overwhelmed by just how many women historically occupied those spaces yet were never taught, never celebrated, never brought into the light as artists, as composers, as writers, journalists, chemists, engineers.. the list goes on and on…and, I am burning.
The first time I had an orgasm I was twenty-three, and while I may have had other orgasms previously, I suppose, I hadn’t really had all that much sex, let alone great sex, by that point in my life, so who knows? In other words, I wasn’t sure. This one, however, was so big, so much the mythic Holy Fuck, that I couldn’t not mistake it for anything other than what it was. Unfortunately, it came at the hands of a lying sack of shite, but I didn’t know that then, although it would be made clear not long after the Big Oh, when he finally, finally invited me back to his swanky, rent controlled apartment on 86th street between the park and Columbus Avenue, which apartment he shared with an ex-girlfriend, now just a non-sexual pal. You understand, right? Yes, sir, absolutely, sir (subtext: can you do that thing with your tongue again?!!)! The arrangement with his ex was made clear soon after he and I met and started frisking around one another. The apartment was a three bedroom, you see, and they paid very little in rent; both he and ex/pal were visual artists, and neither was willing to give the place up even though they were no longer a couple, and so it goes. In any age in any large, crowded city, and certainly in New York City, real estate can collide with love, thus this ‘situation’ was completely within the realm of credulity. My realm, for sure, as I was both young and dumb. And, he was very, very sexy. That orgasm, JHFC, life forms on Mars might’ve seen or felt its vibrations.
However, it turned out this story of his was absolutely, no question, a load of horseshit, total fucking fiction. Non-sexual roomies? Living together as exes and good friends? Sure, pal. We’d finished playing tennis on that fateful day (*not the day of the Big Oh), on the courts in Central Park, (*tennis is a great game for meeting and frisking if you’re into or looking for that), and Mr. Big Oh/Lying shack of shite said he wanted to show me his place. Okeedoke! Thought bubble: tennis then sex? What could be better? Not much. Yay.
Great space, nice building, impressive – I’ll give you a tour. Sure! One of the bedrooms was his sculpture studio, the other was her painting – wait. The other was her painting studio?! But. Suddenly, I was walking in fog, brain fog, my stomach down around my feet, slightly nauseous. Stunned. I kept walking, to the third bedroom, which was huge and flooded with light, facing the street, and nicely furnished with a king-sized bed, the only bed I’d seen so far. Harumph. Full length mirror in the corner, check, and dresser, check – complete with a bit of feminine mess, as well as a framed photo of the schmuck standing next to me embracing a woman not me (obviously) on its surface. There he proposed – y’know, that we engage in more co-ed wrestling. I thought you were friends, that she was your ex, you said she was just a friend. He laughed, shrugging his shoulders. Well, then, fuck no, asshole. I actually did that, although I didn’t say asshole or fuck no, I mumbled and bumbled and got out of there PDQ. I was young and dumb, but I wasn’t a total dope, although he sure made me feel like one, in that moment, in their bedroom. Their bedroom. Ugh.
Look, he was a sculptor who did odd jobs – one of which was maintenance of a cemetery in the Bronx, fixing gravestones and time worn statuary, and another of which was teaching tennis. I didn’t know this then, how could I, but common wisdom says that tennis teachers, especially at the casual play level, y’know, just for fun and exercise, are generally rabbits, as in they’ll fuck everything that moves, so yes, find your frisk there with another player/student, but don’t fuck the instructor unless it’s purely to burn more calories, no strings attached.
We met playing tennis in Central Park; I was twenty-three, looking for friends, real friends, in NYC for the first time, having left the east village for greener pastures, or so I hoped. I was working at a bar a bunch of tennis types frequented, Hanratty’s on Amsterdam and 96th. I’d played tennis in high school, not too seriously, but was pretty good, so, sure, I’ll play! Hanratty’s, by the way, had great food, and was always busy, yet I was consistently the only waiter who made money there, which confused me. It took me several years to figure out that this was because everyone else who worked there was spending their tips on cocaine. Young, and dumb. And, for three years at that point, not drinking, or doing drugs. Nope. Sober as a judge, yet none the wiser for it. So, basically, I was missing a lot of signs, all over the place. (psssssst: if they don’t take you to their apartment, rather insisting on meetingelsewhere, they def be married or attached, GF!!)
Mr. Big Oh/Lying Sack of Shit was good looking in an untypical way, in great shape, with lots of hair, and he was funny, smart, interesting, different. He pursued me in a way that was pointed but subtle, if that makes sense. He was also good friends with a couple I was trying to befriend, two classically trained, college educated pianists who had apartments in the neighborhood. She worked at Hanratty’s with me, and gave music lessons, while her boyfriend taught both tennis and piano. They were several years older than I was, and Matt, Mr. Big Oh, was in his thirties. Surely, if he was lying to me about his relationship, one or the other of my brand-new forever friends would say something? Surely, they would? Ah, no. Nope. That’s on you, new kid in town. And maybe they didn’t know? They knew. She did say something, when I questioned her, afterwards. FEH.
But, let’s get to the first time certified Big Oh, and put his lies aside for now (mostly). He pursued, we frisked and flirted, played tennis, and drank with his friends (he’d known the couple for at least five years to my three or four months) at the bar at Hanratty’s, him drinking booze and me drinking seltzer, or water. And, he lied, he lied like a dog, no one challenged him or warned me, and I didn’t, ever, question or challenge him because – naïve. And so, one hot afternoon in July, my birthday month (he was a Pisces, another water sign, compatible! and of course I remember that, along with his full name), we had sex in my apartment, dragging one another gleefully up five flights of stairs to my futon covered captain’s bed.
What happened next? Oh, the usual. Shorts, tee shirts, undies flung hither and yon, saliva swapping, hands everywhere, breath all breathy, and the absolute pure joy and fun of skin on skin contact with another human being. My. Favorite. Sport. Sex. So great. And at one point, Mr. Big Oh was eating our heroine out, and here it is, the Big Oh, like a train boom appearing in a tunnel and I am right smack dab (legs spread!) in the middle of the tracks. Run. Me. Over.
How did I know it was an actual, real orgasm? Well, lemme tell you – the blood rushed through my body so intensely, so bigly, so overwhelmingly, I was at first, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, shaking and quaking and then, well then I was alluvasudden unable to move. What the what is this?!! Paralyzed. I could not move. For several very long moments, I was immobile, and, because nothing is ever uncomplicated – I went right to the lane of, ‘Oh fuck, this is how I die, or I remain forever paralyzed, and my parents find me, naked, spread eagle on my bed in this shit hole apartment?!! The little – literal – death, or disability, from orgasm, from pleasure!?!! Waaaaaah!!’ He didn’t notice (he was busy), but, and, however, after a few very long, long beats, movement returned, as did my sense that that, why that sure was something special! Was it ever.
Since then, I have to admit, I have never had such a booming orgasm, one that paralyzed me again, and that’s okay by me. I have had many other orgasms, big and small, and all points in-between. I’ve also slept with men who could not find my clitoris or make me cum for love or money or anything else. And that’s okay, too. Even mediocre or bad sex is sex, right? Maybe. Sometimes it’s just a kind of bandaid. One fellow I was involved with while my dad was dying was so frustrated by my lack of orgasm after the first night we spent together – when I’d had several – I knew I was withholding, but his style in bed sucked, and truth he was a bandaid, a tourniquet, merely, a night out, a sex break while I watched my dad fade away. Not my best moment, although I had had high hopes when we met and started seeing one another. Ultimately, though, I just didn’t like him, so his frustration was fine by me. He wasn’t a nice guy, too controlling, and much too angry, especially at his soon-to-be ex-wife, and the way he operated in the world was how he was in bed: a dull, one note, buzz saw of a battering ram. Foreplay, fun, connection – all of these – are essential, imo, to having great sex.
Fifteen years after my revelatory afternoon in the three-bedroom apartment on 86th street, I ran into Mr. Matthew Big Oh in the post office on Columbus and 90th street, a long narrow space where it is impossible to avoid anyone, regardless of who they are, or were, to you. Oh. Matt. Although at first, I thought, wait, no, this cannot be him?! He was being led, almost as if on a leash, by a woman who was probably my age, possibly younger, and he looked old, and worn out. His expression was the most perfect representation of hang-dog (Miriam-Webster: sad, dejected, sheepish) I’ve ever seen – it was almost as if he couldn’t raise his head above the level of his girlfriend’s nose, and she was short, people. Oh Matt. Karma Baby. Not my problem, and thank goodness for that. I was just another score for him, I think, one of many; who knows how many tennis students and their friends, how many women, period, he picked up in Central Park during his prime years, long gone. Good for him. Whatever. I’m simply sorry I fell for his line, but sure, you do you, Matt.
At the time I saw him again, I was working for a writer in my neighborhood, another one of those part-time jobs I took while trying to figure my shit out, contemplating leaving NYC to write my own stories, instead of helping a dilettante with hers. Running into him was a little like watching an old journal go up in smoke: satisfying, a cause for reflection, a letting go, grateful to put a pin in it, done, over. This is not mine, not me, not anymore; this represents another life, another world, another brick in the wall of life’s experiences.
*Every once and a while I go back to Leaves of Grass, re-reading it for the umpteenth time, because it is beautiful, and powerful, and profound. It is a song, and a poem,an anthem, a celebration of life. Here is the first stanza…and if you’ve never read it, or any Whitman, I urge you to do so.
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes . . . . the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . . it has no taste of the distillation . . . . it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever . . . . I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration . . . . the beating of my heart . . . . the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and darkcolored sea- rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . . words loosed to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses . . . . a few embraces . . . . a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides,
The feeling of health . . . . the full-noon trill . . . . the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
*I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. – Clarence Darrow
The rematch begins again: grudges versus affirmations. This week for the ??th time in my life I have determined that holding anger and resentment toward other people is not good for my health, mental or physical, and that renting so much space out, for free, in my head to shitty humans is not worth it. This is not a revolutionary thought: I’ve known it for ages. Years. Decades. And, once again, I’ve been doing a few letting go exercises and affirmations to fina-fucking-ly let go, or, to be more accurate, at least improve the rent situation, lighten TF up, and start or continue the healing process. This takes the grudges down a notch or two, eliminating a few (knock wood), for the immediate moment, until the next time I initiate another conscious consciousness upgrade/rematch. Conscious as in it takes deliberate thought to alter my consciousness; it takes practice and hard work to get the grim nasties under control and out of my system.
It makes me giggle – shamefacedly!! – to admit that I hold grudges against a couple of people who are, ahem, no longer with us (and may they rest in peace), but in fact it also makes me giggle (truly, my bad) to admit how many grudges I hold. That list is loooooong, people. Why is that? Well, because I was in local politics, which is a teeming sewer, also, I’m a human-fucking-being, and lastly, humans are complicated hot messes, at best. I am also, no doubt about it, a stubborn, headstrong human bean, as well as being a challenge to the more conventional, an independent female with my own money, lots of opinions, and no discernible ‘job’ or ‘career’ or ‘sugar daddy/ husband/ breadwinner’. I have pressed buttons for a long ass time, as in most people have relatively strong reactions to and even stronger assumptions regarding Miss Thing over here, whether or not they’ve ever actually spoken to me. And, being unconventional in a conventional world, there are those who feel free to speak and/or act on their idiotic ‘disapproval’. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, ‘For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure’. Yeah. In rural America, that maxim is magnified by the short list of options available for those who never left or thought of leaving.
All that said, what I have been doing (again) is, while walking my dog in the mornings or swimming laps in the afternoons, dwelling on the people on my fuck you list, and consciously sending blessings their way. This is my standard blessing, which you are free to use, as I got it from – Eckhart Tolle? Liz Gilbert? Anne Lamott? The internet? – who knows, but it works for me. I even use it for myself, blessing myself, when I need to, when I am anxiety-ridden, not as often as in years past but, on occasion. Here it is: ‘may (so-and-so sonofadick) be happy, may they be heathy, may they ride the waves of their life, and may they find peace no matter what’. Sometimes I add ‘as far away from me as possible’ to the finding peace piece, because that’s a more honest affirmation, and isn’t honesty the best policy? Yes, yes, it is.
I find it calms me and makes my heart feel lighter. I guess? Usually, yeah, it does. Anyway, it definitely helps get me away from the well-trodden ruts of anger and resentment, ruts that lead nowhere, that are circular, that become over time ditches, potential sinkholes from which there might be no escape. And, this week, one of the people on that very active blessings list contacted me for the first time in two plus years to – okay, it was to ask for help – but, given she was one of my oldest friends, hey, give her the info she’s looking for, including my asked for opinion re: same, and keep moving, lightly, lightly. Happy to help, hope you’re well, buh-bye. I set the boundary, originally (she is tied at the hip to my gossipy, unfriendly AF sister-in-law), because enough already with the triangulation, JHFC, puh-leeze. I will, in turn, respect it, that boundary, because I set it (respect for self) for good reason, and having spent the last two plus years without that tied-at-the-hip incestuous nonsense in my life, oh, oh, oh, what a relief!
Pictured above: Clarence Darrow, Counsel for John T. Scopes, who comes up for Trial in Dayton, TN for teaching evolution in alleged violation of the law. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive) He was also attorney for Leopold and Loeb, another of his famous cases, and ‘trials of the century’. Great face, eh?
Because the universe has a devilish sense of humor, this morning I was given an opportunity to put the exercise of blessing a prick in immediate action, to not be a prick in return, to rise above it! Thank you for the opportunity, universe (insert eye-roll here____). I was walking the dog and thinking on my used to be grudge-y list, now the moveTFon list, and doing my blessings for each individual piece of shite human. My furry bundle of joy canine proceeded to poop on the verge of a town road about three miles from my house, one I have been using to change things up, largely because there are only four houses on it, and hardly ever any traffic to excite the chase in my 90-pounds of love, otherwise known as Diego the dog. So, he did the deed, and as one of the joys of rural life being not having to pick up poop on isolated public by-ways, I let it lie. Now, it was dumped in the grass by Diego about twenty feet from a parking spot belonging to a lady I know, slightly. She would not have reason to walk there, nor was the deposit close to her vehicle, her entryway or her bridge (you can only access her property across a lengthy footbridge). When I returned to my car, parked three-quarters of a mile from her house, about fifty minutes later at the end of our route, I found dog poop for the second day in a row on the ground next to where I would potentially step to get in my car. Oh. Yesterday’s ‘that’s another big dog who came through here not long after I parked’ naivete became ‘Oh, shit, Shirley carried the dog shit from up past her parking spot all this way yesterday and today to, to – to make a point?!’
The choice before me was stark: should I call her and give her hell, telling her what a petty cow she was, alternately pasting a note on the windshield of her truck – ‘get a life, bitch’, or, worse, toss poop onto her bridge when she’s not home – or… should I simply type up or write a note apologizing for my dogs indiscretions in the general region of her home (about 100 yards away, across the bridge and stream), including my cell number for future reference, adding that I hope, if she has a problem with my dog pooping on public by-ways ever again, she would call me to discuss it, or even stop by my house. I mean, after all, bitch, we have been acquainted for fifty-plus years. Oops. The funny thing is, yesterday I thought I was being paranoid, nah, nobody would put a big poop right by my car door on purpose!! And today, well, today I know better; today, shit still happens, and it’s up to me to decide how best to handle it. Jury’s still out because – I know I’m not the only one who walks my dog along that stretch – and, human that I am, it makes me laugh, thinking of the effort she has to go to, to do what she’s been doing – drive or walk a quick mile plus back and forth from her house – picking up dog shit out of the grassy verge to prove her point, which is in fact not an unreasonable one: clean up after your dog. We’ll see. Just because she’s petty cow doesn’t mean I have to be. May Shirley be happy, may she be healthy, may she ride the waves of her life, and may she find peace, no matter what.
Is it weird that I’m wondering what could possibly motivate someone to pick up poop – I mean I love my dog and all, but I don’t touch it unless I have to – and move it from one part of the road to another – besides petty spitefulness? Just let the rain take it, or push it over into the taller grass if the sight of it offends you, right? Oh well, back to work on the clash of values, the letting go, the championship bout between who I am and who I seek to be.
I imagine by the time I’m seventy, or eighty, all this stuff, any and all of my grudges, will seem like petty nonsense, right? Fingers crossed.
*Dogs never bite me – just humans. ~ Marilyn Monroe
He needs a haircut, don’t you agree? He’s not easy to catch in a still or semi-still moment for photos, believe me, and cutting his hair is a two-person job.
Diego, it turns out, is a Spanish form of the English name James and has the same meaning, which is “supplanter”. It is also associated with the Spanish word for “Saint”, which is “Santo” – all of which is hilarious for a number of reasons, one of which is that he ain’t no saint, but he sure is a supplanter, having replaced and upended my perviously peaceful life with a heckin’ load of work, chaos, outdoor time, and fun.
This next photo is Diego in his favorite awake spot inside the house, by the French doors where he can supervise the movement of various birds, the woodchuck that lives in the stone wall, and my neighbors. This photo also almost, almost captures the length of his lil leggums, which ain’t lil, a’tall. Sigh. 90 pounds of pure furry love!
“All this might be an illusion but all the same I cannot question the things I have experienced. Memories belong in this category.” ~ Shohei Ooka
Living in New York City, or, I suppose, any large and densely packed metro area, laundry – as in access to washers and dryers – is a thing, a challenge, an inconvenience, a marker of how much cashola you have. Rich folks have w’s and d’s in their large, rich people flats; they send out, to specialist cleaners – his shirts, jackets, and pants, her blouses and dresses – among other items; their staff (housekeeper, cleaning women) will wash the rest, including the unmentionables. Being not rich-y-rich, not even close, I still find it quite thrilling that I can, even over two decades after leaving NYC, wash my own clothes and everything else that needs washing in my own home, whenever I want (whenever I want!!!) because I have my very own washer and dryer. In my house, at my permanent disposal. Oh joy! Oh rapture! Basic/major appliances on hand and always ready: what a gift, and I am grateful AF.
Carrying even one bag of laundry several blocks is such a specific sweaty task, even in, maybe especially in winter (sweating while also freezing and slipping around, anyone?). When I lived in the East Village, the walk was about four blocks up 2nd Avenue to a reasonably clean spot, but the laundromat closest to me in my next neighborhood on the Upper West Side was another whole story. On Columbus Avenue between 103rd and 104th streets, it was – I kid you not – scary: dark, ancient, with worn and dirty walls scarred by graffiti half-heartedly wiped away, and yellowed by age inadequate florescent lighting over-head. I went there for a couple of years, the whole process took about 3.5 hours, and you dared not leave your wash unattended, so it was time to read and people watch, if you were brave enough to look at the other patrons, because looking at someone could be taken as an insult, an intrusion, a judgement in that place, that neighborhood, during those early years of the 1980s.
The woman who ran the place, owned it too, I guess, would do your wash for a fee, but I found her so terrifying I rarely approached her for any cause. A chain smoker, she had a backroom she might’ve lived in, not sure, and she was big, foul mouthed, and very, very angry, it seemed to me, all the time. Just asking her for change to use her machines was a challenge, kind of like asking an alligator to share its dinner? Doesn’t she want me to spend my money here, so – making change would seem like part of the service? But no, for gawd knows what reason, it infuriated her. She was like the mom in fairy tales who is actually a monster with a lashing pointed tail hidden under the tent dress she wore, the kind who eats little kids, including her own. And if you’ve never had your wet wash dumped out of a dryer you’ve fed several dollars into, dumped right out onto the questionably clean floor, as I did after stepping away for five minutes, you haven’t lived.
Not as close by was another much smaller, cleaner, less worn laundromat run by a man who was short and skinny, always on the move; he was always smiling, too. That seemed a bit suspect, but still, I stopped by one day – it was an extra whole and very long block away from my apartment, so it was unlikely I’d use it – yet it seemed he truly was genuinely nice, the atmosphere was one of cheery industry, women chatting with one another primarily in Spanish or what I assumed was Mandarin, and, in this place, everyone seemed to be taking care of one another, less piranha feeding frenzy-like, more controlled chaos only there was clearly order, and kindness, if you stuck around, which I did. Eventually, because I noticed he also did people’s laundry for them, I asked how much would it cost for him to do mine? For that bag? For this bag full. Five dollars. No way. Five dollars? Five dollars. Okay! I always gave him ten.
He was really nice, and getting someone who was kind to do my laundry was really, really, really nice. Heading off to college at eighteen, I didn’t know how to do ‘the wash’, because my mother was a fucking freak who treated her washer and dryer like they were her most precious possessions, the family jewels of a weirdly specific sort. Hers. Twice in my life she physically attacked me for attempting to use her washer, and while she was happy to instruct my sisters in how to do wash, and did my brother’s laundry until the day his domestic cat of a wife took over, she absolutely refused to teach me. I don’t know all of the reasons why that was, but in general she liked to stymie me, however and whenever she could. No problem, how hard can it be? It’swash…everyone does it (well, everyone except my brother).
When I ran out of clean clothes my first semester at Syracuse U., I took that same future five dollars’ worth canvas bag, my bottles of detergent and bleach (that’s what you use, right?) to the laundry room on the first floor, where I was thrilled to be able to fit all the clothes in a single machine (because why not,right?). Hooray! I added detergent and bleach (that’s what you do, right?), and – turning my back on the machine to read a history assignment – discovered thirty minutes later that I had a washing machine full of Pesto Bismol pink clothing, except my jeans and corduroys, which were chock full of pink and white spots and streaks. What. The. Hell. I figured out that a red cotton skirt I owned, which was no longer entirely red, had ‘shared’ its color because…bleach, I guessed? Shared. Oops. Straight from the washer into the garbage can, except for the salvageable bits I could still possibly wear. Thank goodness most of my clothes came from the thrift shop, although I did mourn a few I had bought new with my own money. Better luck next time? There was another, older student in the laundry room that day, while I waited for her to leave the room (no way was I going to take the puke-pink wash out in front of her), and for my machine to finish its cycle, I watched her separate her whites from her colored clothing, and put bleach in with the whites, and the whites only. Oops.
One day, less than a decade later, and after several years of using the laundromat with the always moving and smiling man, I came back from a midtown audition appointment, dressed in a billowing pale green skirt, white striped silk-ish blouse I still miss, and heels. It must’ve been for a soap, the audition, and as it was a hot summer day, I exited the 103rd street subway at the farthest north end to reduce my outside walk by a block. The steps at the 104th street exit are very steep, and I joined a wall-to-wall crowd slowly making its way upstairs like little sardines in a pack. As we began to gain sunlight, I was hit on the back of the head with rocks, twice, and found that I was bleeding; several of others in the group were hit also, and, looking up, I saw a group of young boys’ heads around the metal barrier above the stairs. Hurt and angry, when I got to the street level, I gave those little shits hell, and then proceeded to walk to the Post Office on 104th street to get some stamps. I was shaken, and still angry, and the heat that day was oppressive – but the bleeding was minimal and I would soon be home, after all. The boys, however, had decided to follow me, and as I made my way down the block a few catcalls followed me as well, nothing new in that, but what was new were pieces of street garbage zinging past my head, or not, hitting my back and legs. Ridiculous. Thankfully, respite was close, so, hastening my steps, it was done and over, and I was safely inside the P.O. While standing on line to get my stamps, a young girl approached me – warning me – that I shouldn’t go out there, because now there was a bunch of boys who were waiting for me, and I was going to get hurt, really hurt. I was stunned, disbelieving – what?! Is this my own special Lord of the Flies moment, or what? She had to be kidding?!
She was not.
As I finished at the window, I noticed a gaggle of small boys had entered the Post Office; they were whispering together, and were clearly keeping me in their sights. Fun stuff. Why, of all days, today, when I was in heels, FFS? Heels, and a billowing skirt. Why of all days had I decided to be a snarky cow, correcting children not my own, with whom I didn’t have a relationship, most of whom were kids of color, when I looked like the epitome of an entitled white lady, which I was, and am, but argh. For whatever reason (denial?) I didn’t reach out to anyone else in the Post Office; it couldn’t be that bad, right? So out I went, walking as fast as possible down the street while again, cans and bottles, rocks and whatever came to hand, began raining down on me from behind, several landing, mostly on my legs, back, and shoulders. I started running as best I could in my cursed heels, making it to the laundromat about a city block away where I threw myself on the mercy of my – acquaintance, the guy who did my laundry, a man who was not much bigger than the kids who were harassing me, if that.
Out he went without hesitation, returning a few minutes later – the boys having been scattered by – whatever he did; I was much too freaked out to watch, or witness. I was merely, hugely grateful. Was it five minutes, or ten, when he came back? I don’t know, but he told me it was okay, he’d dealt with it, and that I was free to take as much time as I needed before heading home. He knew these kinds of things, and how they can happen, but assured me they wouldn’t bother me again. He said he wasn’t afraid of bullies, and the only way to deal with them was to show no fear, ever. They were cowards, and easily – although I know he didn’t use this word – cowed. He then showed me what I had noticed before, but had never dared ask about: the tattoo on his arm, a series of numbers, telling me it was a souvenir of the concentration camp he’d lived in, and survived, as a child in Poland. I had seen it, of course, and thought that’s what it was, from the Holocaust, but who could I ask if I was too shy to ask him, which I was, same with my wondering where he was originally from, his accent having given his foreign birth away. He laughed, flexing his muscle on that same arm, laughing at – at himself? At life? At triumphing over the gang of kids? At surviving? He explained that this, this time in the camps in Poland, was why he was so short, he was starving there for years, before the liberation, but he had lived. And this was why he came to New York, to America, to be free, and safe, where he could work hard and make a life for himself after seeing the very worst of human behavior. He was forever grateful, and now, nothing scared him, certainly not a bunch of little kid bullies from around the block.
After that, we were friends, not sharing lunch and gossip friends, but friends, even though we never knew one another’s names. I stopped by to say hello whenever I was over that way, and bought him a gift for the holidays, grateful he was there, grateful, period. After that, he was my hero, for many reasons, and I loved him for his always smiling, always moving self. Those boys never glommed together again, that I knew, but I continued to look up every time I used that subway exit, just in case, and I stopped wearing heels to and from auditions, carrying them in my bag while sporting sneakers, ready, always, to run if I had to.
My friend the laundry man died of a heart attack on the job, about eighteen months later. I don’t know how old he was, but he could not have been much more than fifty, and it was terrible, a tragedy. I found out when I brought a bag of laundry for washing; there were women weeping in the narrow space, hugging one another, mourning him in Spanish, and Mandarin, English, too – enough for me to find out what had happened. No one there that day knew of his family, or who to contact; his body had been taken away by ambulance that morning; no one was in charge, everyone was in charge. I felt ashamed I never asked his name, or if he had family living. It seemed too personal, possibly too painful. But, I should’ve asked. Not long after that, I moved to mid-town. He had lived nearly thirty years in the U.S., spending his days in a long, narrow room filled with women and children and the noise of the washers and dryers, and he was always smiling.
In case you live under a rock and were unaware that 81-year-old Martha Stewart is this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover Model, now you know, and – you’re welcome. Or, whatever. Personally, I am a fan of Martha’s, a woman not unlike Hillary Clinton with regard to the outsized hatred she’s engendered in her life, although I’m not a watcher or reader of her shows, her books, her magazine, what have you (in fact, does she even have a show or magazine anymore?) so, basically, I’m not a fan fan. I simply admire her for being a smart, successful business woman with a great sense of humor, one who knows how to use the media in support of her businesses. Martha is also admirable for her resilience, for having survived, and thrived, despite pissing off a lot of tweeny lil men, enough to end up in prison for a pretty slim case of insider trading of a type that is so common in certain circles in NYC, and elsewhere, if the authorities wanted to they could spend all day and night every day prosecuting it. But, they don’t, and for good reason.
As for Sports Illustrated. Who cares? Oh right, a lot of people do. I guess? A lot of men do. First of all, the magazine should be called Men’s Sports Illustrated, because the number of women and girls whose photos and stories inhabit the pages – even a half century after Title IX was passed – are miniscule. Miniscule. Tiny. Itty-bitty. Small. Few and far between. So, let’s be honest and call it like it is: Men’s Sports Illustrated. That a nearly nude 18 – 28-year-old female graces the cover annually, usually, creating that year’s best-selling issue – pardon me, 18 – 28-year old primarily white female – is y’know, not a big deal unless I guess you’re either the female in question ($$ka-ching! $$) or a person who enjoys looking at nearly naked females, and given the ubiquity of naked women and girls on the internet (so I’ve heard), maybe it’s time to move on? Maybe?
For a millennium, men have held the majority of the buying and selling power in the world, but people like Martha Stewart have been changing that for some time now, and – a recommended read – Rebecca Traister’s All the SingleLadies outlines how that rising demographic of successful, experienced, often well-educated, working, middle and upper-class women are changing the overall paradigm, and not a minute too soon. I started The First Time Project because I was sick to death of reading and seeing stories of male sexual initiation. FFS, not another one! And, in the culture at large, women and girls are waking up to the power of having our own: our own money, stock portfolios, businesses, homes, investments, representation, ideas, choices, desires – and our own stories told, respected, believed, and acted upon. Do we still have a long way to go? Fuck yeah, we do.
Does Martha Stewart’s appearance on the cover of SI’s breathlessly anticipated swimsuit issue change anything? Maybe, maybe not. But it is a conversation starter, and conversations are good, ain’t dey? Yes, yes dey are. For example, answer this: why the fuck is there a swimsuit issue, at all? And if so, why not a mostly naked man at least every other year, arising from the surf in Hawaii or whatever TF they shoot these things. I could go for that. Would advertisers flee? Would reader-subscribers? We won’t know until it’s tried, now will we? Mix it TF up. And of course we can discuss the male gaze, the taken for granted, assumed male point of view, and gaaaaaaaze. Who is holding the camera, who is editing these magazines with their dearth of female athletes portrayed, who is determining what and who is newsworthy in a world that is – however incrementally – changing; this is a subject for conversation, for discussion, for consciousness raising – the late 1960s equivalent of ‘woke’.
I’ve also seen the response on social media to the cover, which response and conversation has tended to revolve around Martha’s ‘work’, as in Botox, face lifts, filler – as well as the amount of retouching required, retouching the editors do even to the 18-28-year-olds, btw, because no woman, not one, is perfect until she’s been heavily retouched. Interesting word that: re-touched, touched again. Hey, the most beautiful person I have ever known was my grandma, a woman I was named after and adored, a woman who adored me, although in a hands-off way because she and my grandfather believed in treating their grandchildren equally, as in equally hands-off. Sigh. Still, she was pretty special and – she had a face that most closely resembled a horse, or a mule – not, by any means, standard issue pretty. But oh, she was gorgeous, highly intelligent, with a lovely sense of humor. She was also incredibly patient and kind. I never, ever heard a word against anyone, ever, come out of her mouth. I intend to grow old as gracefully and naturally as my grandma, who was a role model extraordinaire – except perhaps for aping the whole not a bad word spoken part, which is probably, mostly not possible, but I’m trying! I might, I just might have a dollop of my to-the-grave grudge-holding paternal grandfather in me. I might. And, once again, other pals of mine are going another route, as they are free to choose for themselves how to age, and hooray for that. One good friend had some kind of Botox-like injection to her upper lip, and was unable to drink through a straw for a week, which made us both laugh, as she so loves her big slurpy iced coffee drinks.
We all have to find our own way, and make our own choices, in a world that is often very cruel, very unforgiving and harsh, toward women as they age. As we raise our personal consciousnesses, as we let go of the ideas we had of ourselves as we once were, as we let go of cultural expectations, of fear, and of our precious egos (William Saroyan on the subject of aging, and death: everybody has to do it, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case), we make our way toward a wrinkled no matter what end. No one gets out of here alive, and no one really wants to get out young, regardless of the beautiful corpse concept. And truthfully, we are the same at age six as we are at age sixty, or ninety; our character, our temperament, our spirit, remains the same.
Robert DeNiro just had another child with his current partner at 79. Seventy-nine. Whatever. What’s sauce for the goose…
And if we must continue these outdated, ridiculous traditions, ones like an annual partly naked person on a sports magazine’s cover, let’s at least change it up, of which this latest gambit is step one. If we must, and – must we? Since Covid, since the weird last several years, can we not upend and alter a number of ancient, creaking, stale and moldy traditions – like inequality and unequal outcomes in healthcare and housing, like crippling student debt, like overpaying CEOs, while underpaying workers, teachers and nurses, like not having universal healthcare in the U.S., like not having paid family leave mandated federally, like paying too much for prescription drugs, like a broken congress, like the filibuster, like having only nine justices on the Supreme Court when we no longer have nine courts of appeals, but thirteen – and don’t you think thirteen is a nice uneven number? Ah! A woman can dream. The tradition of wedding bouquets and father of the bride dances can be toileted as well, in my opinion, as for white lace or satin dresses – puhleeeze – but I won’t get my hopes up, at least not for another decade or so.
Hey, I say go for it, Miss Kostyra (Martha’s maiden name), do whatever floats your boat. She certainly can take the heat she is getting; she has handled it well for decades. Practically my favorite thing about Martha Stewart is that she is, actually, friends with Snoop Dogg, which is perfect. And she did start her career as a model, back in the day. Jersey Girls Rule.
Here’s a link (below) to a survey of how many/often women – sans the swimsuit issue – have been featured on SI’s covers, it’s from 2013 but I figure nothing mich has changed since then, but again – a woman can hope.
So, basically, I listen to all of the POD Save America Podcasts, because I am a politics junkie and nerd-girl and what could be better than to listen to a bunch of smart, funny people talk about several of my obsessions? And, last week one of the many hosts on PSA (clearly, trying to be provocative, but still!) blamed the fall of Roe v. Wade on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That’s right, it’s all Ruth’s fault, because she didn’t retire early in Obama’s second term. FFS, WTF? A liberal, white male pundit is saying RBG is at fault for the fall of Roe? I’ve been stewing on this ever since, because no. No. And just fuck no. The conversational context, to be clear, was the imminent return of Dianne Feinstein to the senate after an extended absence, during which the GOP members of the Judiciary Committee of the US Senate refused to move numerous appointments to the Federal Judiciary forward on an almost evenly divided committee that, lacking Feinstein’s single vote to appoint, was stuck at an entirely even 50-50. Please, please, puh-leeze blame those intransigent conservative fuckers, not Dianne Feinstein, FFS. And, blaming a woman – Feinstein or Bader Ginsberg – for what mostly male Senators, justices, legislators, donors to and members of the Federalist Society, religious leaders, and male everything else in power have done to squash Roe (including creating a Senate where the rules overwhelmingly advantage small states, and white male power), is classic patriarchy. Coming from a liberal voice – a gay white male, no less – simply added insult to injury, but just because a man is liberal, or gay, or a professional pundit re: politics doesn’t mean he isn’t infected with the same biases we all have, including misogyny.
And, this is how the patriarchy works. Patriarchy 101. Blame women. (Or POC, or the Poor, or Gays, or Drag Queens … it’s all the same, really) Blame women who are victims of sexual assault for wearing the wrong outfit or being out at night; blame E. Jean Carroll for entering a store with Trump (I’m still working on getting the sound of the crowd’s laughter at the CNN Town Hall re: sexual assault out of my head); blame Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s infidelities; blame Feinstein for – after a lifetime of public service – not getting out of the way; blame RBG for wanting to do her job to the last moment possible, largely because she wanted to see a female president appoint her successor (like a lot of other people, RBG underestimated the power of misogyny, and misinformation, assuming Hillary Clinton would win the election in 2016). Blame women for the many ways in which our political system is set up to keep those in power in power, which includes, at this late date, a mere handful of women like Feinstein. Gasp!
Call the Violence Against Women Act the Violence Against Women Act, when its purpose is to eradicate, reduce, punish and find solutions for male violence against women, a clever trick of language that erases male responsibility. I want and need to do a deep dive to find out if the original writers of the act believed the it would never pass if you added that language, making men own their gender’s actions? And please, please, please – don’t go there with ‘but not all men’. Not all men, sure, but far too many. Reminds me of that mental trick: ask yourself how many women do you know personally who have been raped, stalked, assaulted, harassed, abused, or groped; now, how many men do you know who are rapists, gropers, stalkers etc., and why it is that no one seems to know any of these men?
Do I wish Feinstein had retired last year, or the year previous, or had simply not run again? Sure. And, feminism at its core is about empowering women (and men, for that matter) wherever they are, whoever they are, to make their own choices without judgement, with freedom, and with the support of individuals, organizations, and our society at large. And, feminism’s mission is to fight the real enemy of equality for all, which ain’t a couple of old ladies in the Legislative or Judicial branches of our government, but rather are the many entrenched misogynistic (and racist, and homophobic, and, and, and) biases and inequalities baked into our systems of justice, policy, religion, finance, education, and government.
If blame we must – and don’t we love to play the blame game – how about we blame Mitch McConnell for refusing even to meet with Merrick Garland, stonewalling his nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016? How about we blame Mitch as well for flipping that script, shoving through Dumpster Fire’s nomination of the handmaid’s tale dream date Amy Coney Barrett at the last possible moment? How about we blame the lying sacks of crap (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch), who swore under oath that they respected and would uphold precedent, including Roe, at their Senate confirmation hearings? How about we blame that conservative Catholic prick Sammy Alito, who quoted 15th century jurisprudence for part of his decision on Roe? A fifteenth Century British Jurist quoted in America in 2022?!? You can’t make this shit up, people. Or how about we blame yet another conservative Catholic, this time Leonard Leo, and his billions along with every other member of the Federalist Society for wanting to control women’s bodies, choices, and futures, claiming it’s because they believe in the ‘sanctity of life’ – while at the same time that exclusive club of mostly rich, white males promote judges, politicians, policies and laws that would fundamentally undermine or eradicate Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps (SNAP), and WIC? FEH.
Fuck that shit and those shitty men. RBG was and is an icon, who – along with Dianne Feinstein – may have stayed too long at the party. And, that was her right. Sigh.
And, while I think men (in power, especially) need to fix the fucking problems men have created, feminism at its core is about equity for everyone, freeing women and men from the idiocies and literal harms of the patriarchy. Here’s a link to yet another recent podcast I listened to entitled The Problem with Boys and Men, featuring two white men in what is, regardless, a great discussion re: the challenges and solutions we’re all facing (we are, all of us, in this together) in case you’re interested. I think Richard Reeves has a lot of good points, although I disagree with a few of them and find it maddening how, as the tables turn, men are unable to help themselves out of the trench they’ve dug. Still, it’s vitally important to know what’s being done, being thought, on all sides, and to dig deeper regardless of what issue is being discussed, and how passionately nauseous I feel about the ‘but men are suffering’ and ‘not all men’ narrative lines. Of course, not all men, and of course men are suffering! Rigid gender roles, ancient, unchanging role models for what men can and cannot be and do, harms everyone, women, girls, boys and men: all of us. Humanism 101. Gosh, I spy a theme.
