Safe Spaces…

…and apologies.

“The president-elect added: ‘The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize'”

Wait a minute. I thought there were no safe spaces. I thought we were supposed to accept and embrace reality.

There is absolutely nothing more insufferable than blazing hypocrisy.

For eight years, people have stomached vile rhetoric, listening to wretched commentary about the President and the First Lady. For hundreds of years, people have endured intense and indescribable pain which has been flippantly dismissed and/or excused.

Now, now we’re supposed to create safe spaces? After we have been told there are none, to get over it? Does anyone even listen to themselves?

If you are an asshole (yes, asshole) who:

1. promotes conversion therapy
2. supports defunding health care providers who provide legal procedures and stem cell research
3. voted against the auto industry bail out which shows zero understanding of economics and supply chain implications (small business owners, Imma lookin atchu)
4. opposes pay parity for women
5. supports the denial of equal rights for the LGBTQ community
6. voted against $84 million in grant money for black and hispanic schools

…then you reap what you sow.

If it’s a safe space you seek, find your basket.

And, President-Elect Trump, you don’t get to demand a fucking thing of the citizens you serve. You work for us. Not the other way around.

A Day in the Life of an Expat

I read the news today. Oh boy.

On Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, I awoke in the five o’ clock hour and just lay there in a half-asleep state, my brain still feeling the effects of the sleeping pill I had taken before going to bed. I use them only rarely now, when I know it will be impossible to shut my brain off in order to fall sleep. This was one of those nights. The day before was the 2016 presidential election back in my home country, the USA. In Sweden we are several time zones ahead, so when I finally pulled my groggy ass out of bed at six AM, it was still going on. The polls had closed but they were counting up the votes. I went to sleep the night before feeling relatively confident that Hillary Clinton would win, hopefully with a sizable landslide. Of course she would win. Everybody said she would. They had totally dismissed Donald Trump’s chances and were already talking about her presidency in the present tense. When she wins, they said, the cult of personality started by Donald Trump and its zealous adherents will still be around, and they will be very pissed off and very loud. She will have to figure out how to deal with them and heal the country. This was the constant narrative being repeated during the final weeks leading up to the election.

But then, the totally unexpected happened, was still happening as a matter of fact, as I opened up Facebook fully anticipating the messages of triumph and joy from my American friends. However, those weren’t the messages I saw. Instead, I saw a lot of updates written in full caps, about the shock and despair and horror they were feeling. Wait a minute…

Thus began the Five Stages of Grief.

Denial:

My husband made us coffee as I sat there reading those updates, not fully comprehending what I was seeing. “Uh…so it looks like Trump won,” I reported. The words hit me like a sledgehammer. My heart was pounding in my chest, like I had just finished running a marathon. At first I actually thought this had to be a joke, that my friends were mistaken. Or they were trolling. I mean, there’s no possible way that Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States. Right? That’s just ludicrous.

“Whaaaat?!?” His response was undoubtedly being repeated around the world.

I should have been getting ready for work, but at that moment all I could do was sit there, ignoring my coffee and trying to figure out what had just happened, because it hadn’t really happened.

Bargaining:

After all, they were still counting up the votes and neither candidate had reached the 270 vote threshold in order to win. He was ahead but there was still hope. There was still time. It hadn’t happened yet. Hillary could still win. And she was AHEAD in the popular vote! But Trump had taken North Carolina and Ohio and…Florida. They said that if Trump took Florida then he would win. It was well and truly over.

Depression:

I somehow managed to shower and dress myself and board a train to take me into the city to work. I sat there on the train feeling completely numb. I no longer wanted to look at Facebook. The updates and articles being posted were just too goddamned depressing. I needed to try and focus on the day ahead of me, on my students. I teach Home Economics at an international school in Växjö, Sweden, and I went over the things that needed to be done. The ninth graders would be baking little meat pies and spinach-feta pies and I had to make sure I bought Quorn crumbles for the vegetarian students so they could substitute those for the ground beef in the meat pie. The sixth graders were making candy apples and caramel popcorn, and I was wondering where I put the Popsicle sticks.

I had to switch to a bus when I got to the train station in Växjö. It was a minus four (24 Fahrenheit) freezing cold morning, as November mornings in Sweden typically are. The bus was late, and as I stood there on the totally exposed bus platform, for fifteen minutes, then twenty, and then twenty five minutes, I watched bus after bus which wasn’t my bus drive by. I thought about jumping in front of one of them. I didn’t want to live on this planet anymore. Nothing made sense. Donald Trump had won the election. He had done every single thing wrong, lost all three debates, committeed gaffe after gaffe, and got caught doing and saying things that would have been deal breakers for literally any other candidate. And yet, he won. Hate had won. Sexism had won. Racism had won. Bigotry had won. Islamophobia had won. Xenophobia had won. Anti-Intellectualism had won. Stupidity had won. The Ugly American had won.

By the time the bus finally arrived, I couldn’t feel my toes, so instead of throwing myself under it, I boarded it and felt its delicious warmth surrounding my body.

Anger:

I eventually got to work. Groceries were bought and I welcomed the distraction of lively practical lessons. Every now and then, an American colleague would ask me, “So, are you a proud American?” in a can-you-believe-this-shit-is-happening kind of way. Swedish colleagues would ask me how I felt about the election, and I would tell them that it hadn’t really sunk in yet. Right before my last lesson, there was some kind of minor drama involving two students’ lockers. They both started chattering at me in rapid Swedish and I couldn’t really understand what they were saying. At that moment, I couldn’t have cared less, and I told them so. “I don’t care.” I was fighting back tears at this point. If I get an email from a parent informing me that they didn’t appreciate me telling their kid that I didn’t care about their problem, then I would apologize and tell them that Donald Trump had just been elected president and I was barely holding it together emotionally. And they would totally understand.

There was a staff meeting directly after my last lesson, but I decided to skip it. It was almost miraculous that I managed to show up to work at all. Throughout the day, a various times I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “WHAT IS HAPPENING????” As I sat on the bus on the way home, it finally sunk in. This was reality. And the tears finally came.

Acceptance:

For some reason, my left ankle was killing me all day. I must have taken a bad step and twisted it. I limped through my lessons and when I got home, my husband took a look at it and said it was all swollen and bruised, like it was sprained. I have no idea what happened. I certainly do not remember spraining my ankle. But I must have. Nothing to do now but deal with it.

Dear Deplorables…

…now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?

My parents, some of questionable sanity, instilled a sense of obligation in me at a young age. Confronted at the age of four with anti-Semitism by the family up the street, my father (the sane one), showed me how to manage bigotry in one sentence and a door slam. Both my father and my stepfather taught me that it is my moral obligation as a Jew to ensure all minorities, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or any other category, are safe from harm.

Throughout my life, I have seen and experienced prejudice, discrimination and overt racism directly and indirectly: at school, at work, during my leisure time, while participating in the most mundane activities or the most critical. It is not dramatic when someone says these experiences can be traumatic and terrifying. When your concept of safe spaces are corrupted, life does become unbearable.

When I speak up, when I interrupt, I fear people hear the words and the voice of a crazed individual ranting on a street corner. Yet, if I don’t, I wonder “who will?” So I do. I do me. As I was raised. As I was inspired by my father, my hero, one of my best friends. And I know I am not alone. I am so fucking blessed to count amazing, brave and bold people as my friends. Men and women who stick their necks out every day to stop injustice and make this hellscape a better place for the benefit of others and not themselves.

As I watch the election returns trickle in, I sit in awe. Of all we have been taught, of all we have learned, the path we are, as a nation, choosing to go down is one of hate and fear. One of intolerance and exclusion. One of complete and total lack of regard for our fellow human beings. As a society, we have committed to dismissing the pain of others. As a society, we have dedicated ourselves to perpetuating stereotypes, false information and lies. And for whose benefit and what cause? To satisfy fear and ignorance. For it is much easier to hide behind the cloak of intolerance than it is to confront our bias, own our weaknesses and grow as people.

Every single man, woman and child in this country, citizen or non, deserves better than what is unfolding right now. This is not the “change we need.” This isn’t the punishment we deserve for our bad behavior, either. This is, simply put, bullshit.

To the deplorables, the leaders and the followers, this is yours now. The responsibility. The accountability. The time for bluster has passed. The time for action has arrived. You must now prove to every single person you are not the bigot you claim you aren’t. You must now prove to every person that you are, indeed, human. You must now earn our respect.

Your margin of victory is small so don’t think of this as a referendum or a free pass. Our black lives still matter. Our safety in public toilets still matters. Our freedom to follow whatever religion (or none at all) is still ours, per The Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled our same sex couples can get married. You don’t have to like or approve of these basic principles but you will still have to accept them. Just as we have been living with your intolerance all of these years.

Show us you can lead by building the bridge to healing. Show us you can lead by being humble and decent. Show us you are anything but the horribly behaved example you demonstrated throughout the election. The ball is in your court. The burden has become yours.

Pantsuit Nation

please note:  my usual laziness and ambivalence will be suspended for today.  As various ideas pop into my fragmented mind, I may or may not blurt them out in manic fits of euphoria, paranoia or confusion.  It’s been a difficult election cycle for all.  On the verge of potentially (as a Philadelphia sports fan, I know better than to hope for any positive outcome) witnessing the election of a female president, I’m finding myself genuinely overcome with emotion.

During my years as a member-facing consultant, I never procured a single pantsuit. That was a pointless endeavour, as I’m short and didn’t feel like spending money on a tailor after buying an expensive suit. Skirts it was. Sadly, no pantsuit in the wardrobe for me today.

Undeterred, I yanked out one still-on-the-hanger-from-the-cleaners navy blue jacket and paired it with a red and white striped shirt, dark grey skinnies and my sugar skull boots which are embroidered with the phrase “Don’t walk in fear.” Kang’s version of a pantsuit will have to suffice for the only time I leave the house: the carpool.

Rock on, Pantsuit Nation.

The Millennal Whoop…

…that one and maybe the other one.

Earlier today, I was listening to Spinning by GROUPLOVE.  Why does that matter, you ask?  Because it’s fucking music and fucking music dictates my existence, that’s why.  And, since not even Dock is immune to a power pop song, I thought I would play Spinning for him on the way to McTeacher night at Mac-Don-Ald-Ssss because we had to dump some money into this valiant fundraising effort while slowly killing ourselves via chicken fusion, “beef” and filet-o-fisk (the word fish in Swedish is fisk).

Around minute who-gives-a-fuck Dock says “Oh!  The Millennial Whoop. Gotta have the Millennial Whoop.  Can’t have a song these days without the Millennial Whoop.”  I What-You-Tawkin-About-Willis him and wait for his knowledge drop.  Whether I like it or not, Dock is way more au courant than I in the music scene.  “The Millennial Whoop.  You know, where all the Millennial bands full of 90 members sing songs that have to include at least one ‘Wo-Oh,’ typically two.”  I’m all what-the-fuckity-fuck-are-you-on-now?  Dock patiently repeats himself and then launches into a diatribe about the Millennial bands with their eleventy billion members, their lutes, their mandolins and their ukuleles.

“Millennials have to be special, creative and different so they decided to add in a ‘Wo-Oh’ so their friend who can’t carry a tune gets a star for participation.  As for the ukuleles, well, there as many of those as there are strings on the instrument.  Each ukulele has one string and it’s played by a single person, reflecting the individuality and specialism of the player and the instrument because, in keeping with the spirit of Millennials, special things require special dedication.  A ukulele will not be sullied by a player playing all four strings at one time.  Oh fuck no.  A ukulele and its string gets the respect it deserves:  one instrument, one string and one player.  Just like the singer who can’t sing but doesn’t like feeling left out:  that person gets the ‘Millennial Whoop’ credit on the liner notes.”

You can see where we’re going.

Ever the reluctant optimist (Me.  No, really.) says “You know, I have been observing a weird trend.  It seems like the entire world has had enough of the Millennials’ handcrafted, *artisanal bullshit.  Even social anthropologists are like ‘Ugh.  I can’t eeeeven any longer with you snowflakes.  Lemme go find a hairblower to melt your sorry asses.'” Dock, being the curmudgeonly skeptic that he is offered a plate of doubt but I persisted.  I even said “Remember all those years I said, ‘let the Millennials try to change the workforce?’  No longer.  Fuck ’em.  Let them get lost on the way back from yoga or the food co-op and miss a meeting.  I’m busy raising a seven year-old and nagging you to take out the garbage.  I can’t be arsed to remind them to do their jobs or show up for a meeting.”

We came to the conclusion that, like everything else, the Millennials kind of suck.  But, we’re Gen-X so we really don’t want to invest the energy into actively disapproving of them, let alone disliking them.

Then, we decided to do a comparative analysis about shopping for a vehicle:  Gen-X vs Millennials, reality vs life through rose colored glasses.

Car salesweasel:  Hi there!  I bet you’re looking for a car!  What can I help you drive off the lot today?

Gen-Xer:  A car?  Is that what you’re selling?  I was hoping for a kidney or one crack, please.  Also, can you confirm the rumor that Mudhoney is playing a rent party in the backroom?

Millennial:  Oh wow!  Hi!  Thank you for being so helpful!  Why yes, I am looking for a car!  Can we be friends?  What’s your user name on Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, Kik and Waterbuffalo?  Are you on Yelp so I can review you?  What about FourSquare?  Will you give me positive feedback as a super-extra-awesome customer when the transaction has concluded?  Also, I’d really like a t-shirt but please make it one that looks like it’s from the 90s.  I’m totally dedicated to retro.  Can’t you tell I’m going for the Cobain-meets-man-bun look?

Car salesweasel:  So, whatcha looking for?

Gen-Xer:  Something that goes backwards and forwards.  Relatively reasonable fuel economy.  Carplay or other stupid interfacing whatever. Turn signals would be nice.  One of those rearview cameras, too.  Just so long as it doesn’t jack up the price because I’m not paying list.  You hear?  I am not paying list.  If you have it in black with tan interior, we have a deal.  You dig?

Millennial:  Ok!  So, this is what I’m thinking about!  I have a few pictures if you want to see what I have downloaded!  I have added some stickers and emojis to convey my feelings because I’m not really great with the words!  I’d like a car that is environmentally friendly because we don’t care enough about the environment these days and I’m super-extra-passionate about the environment and none of the candidates even addressed that in the debates!  None!  Can you believe that!?!  Well, Bernie did, at least!

Next, I need really gentle tires for the blacktop!  I hate hurting things, physically and/or emotionally!  I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I caused any form of pain!  Also, I left my favorite fluffy at my parents’ house when I was there doing laundry and they told me I wasn’t allowed to come back for two weeks so sleeping has been really. really, really hard.  :cry cry cry:

Super critical!!111! Do you offer carbon offset credits? Because, again with the environment!!! I cannot buy the Grand Wagoneer without the credits! I just can’t! And I really can’t see myself and my 20 dogs in a Fiat! There’s just not enough room for that!!! We can’t have the dogs cramped on the long trips to the mountains for the weddings I have to go to! Also, I haul *a lot* of mason jars and pickled vegetables for my side business. Are you interested in purchasing pickled gourds for your Thanksgiving dinner? I handcrafted them myself with help from my friends who make their own diaper cream. :sticks screen in salesweasel’s face: LOOK AT MY WEBSITE!!! Helvetica is the best!!! I masturbate to style guides. Oh. That was TMI, wasn’t it?

Car salesweasel:  Are you financing the purchase or…?

Gen-Xer:  What the fuck is wrong with you?  I’m financing this like I financed the toilet paper I had to buy yesterday.

Millennial:  So, here’s my concept of how we should be paying for things!  Money is corrosive to the soul and thus corrosive to society!  In order to build a more perfect world, I suggest we trade!  You will give me the car and I will give you two hours of manual labor at your home!  I can empty the dishwasher, take out the trash or clean the litterbox! Wait!  You look disappointed.  Fine.  I’ll throw in a case of my special, birch scented homemade beard wax if you promise to give me a year’s worth of oil changes, too!  What do you say?  Do we have a deal?  OMG OMG OMG!  If we do, I will totally meet you at the park for a game of kickball!  You’ll love my friends!  They make the best moonshine you have ever tasted in your life!  Right in the bathtub!  I’m telling you.  The things one can do with what one already has.  If people just stopped, slowed down and appreciated what was around them and the unique gifts life has to offer…

Then we started making fun of the Millennials’ farm-to-table lettuce sammiches on stone ground wheat bread.  Little did they know the lettuce was sourced from Compare Foods on Avondale Drive in Durham and the bread was stolen off a delivery truck parked by the Sheetz on Miami Blvd.

Being Gen-X is whatever.  We knew from a young age no one gave a shit about us or anything other than themselves.  This was impressed upon us every time we came home from school to an empty house with only the television to keep us company.  We’re not necessarily the bastards of the young but we are the bastards of the Boomers.  There’s a lot to be said for being the progeny of the narcissistic.

While other generations have said our attitude sucks and we’re slackers, thinking that was going to incite some form of change or emotional growth and development, we stayed true to our ambivalent selves and did nothing.  We don’t fucking care about what people think.  Never have.  Never will.  We remain the generation just trying to make it across the hellscape.  We’re the generation that took existentialism and nihilism and made it something for the masses as opposed to the intellectually sanctimonious and elite by merely breathing and rolling our eyes while smoking a blunt and drinking PBR from a CAN.

And, as we sit on the cusp of this nation’s destruction, some of us are concerned but we’re also not. Gen-X continues to see your bullshit. Be it the selfishness and narcissism of the Boomers or the complete inability to accept that humans are ordinary from the Millennials. Whatever comes to pass, as the circus continues around us, Gen-X, sandwiched by The Bearded generations (patchouli Deadheads who refuse to let go of the past and hipsters who really have no fucking idea what irony is), will remain spectators, quietly singing along to the Millennial Whoop in our financed vehicles while consuming processed food, drinking overpriced coffee, comforted by the knowledge that we don’t look through rose colored glasses.  We’re not snowflakes.  We’re not special. We’re not seeking “experiences.”  We just don’t want to be assholes – bearded or clean shaven.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

*Look at this.  Even spellcheck won’t acknowledge the existence of artisanal.  That’s how fucking lame this word and this concept is.  To prove my point further:  the word includes the word ANAL as the suffix.

Almost every woman you know…

…has a story of sexual assault. Some of us have several stories.

The first time I can remember it happening I was probably about eight years old. I was riding my bicycle home on a sunny afternoon in a calm Los Angeles suburb. A man walking in the opposite direction waved at me, indicating he wanted to talk to me. I slowed down and stopped obligingly, and he asked me if I knew where a certain street was. I started to tell him that yes I did know where that was, but as soon as I started describing the way, he walked closer to me and shoved his hand down the front of my shirt. He felt up my bare chest for a few seconds, then pulled his hand out, and walked away, giving me a self-satisfied smirk that told me that he had just done this thing to me and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t speak or scream or react at all. Mortified and ashamed don’t really describe what I was feeling. I felt violated. Completely and totally violated. I’d never been touched that way by anyone before. But at eight years old I didn’t know how to process those feelings. I rode the rest of the way home, turned on the TV and watched cartoons. I tried to block out what just happened. I tried not to see his face. I was determined that I would not cry because I didn’t want anything to seem out of the ordinary.

I never told anyone or spoke about it until recently, when I told my husband. This was my introduction to sexual assault. I was eight years old and it happened in broad daylight. Other things have happened to me since then that make this first incident seem pretty mild by comparison. It had long since been buried and forgotten.

Then Donald Trump’s “grab’em by the pussy” scandal hit the news. That’s when women started sharing their stories of sexual assault, about how powerless and violated and weak it made them feel. It’s the guilt and shame that makes us never want to report it or talk about it. We know that we will be told that we must have wanted it if we made no effort to fight them off.

As for that, I can tell you that when it’s happening to you, these are the thoughts going to through your mind:

Oh god, this is really happening to me.
Please, please, don’t hurt me.
Please don’t kill me.
Please just let it be over soon.
Please don’t kill me.
Please just go away when you’re finished and leave me alone.
Please don’t kill me.

You’re not thinking about fighting back. You’re just hoping it will be over soon and that he won’t hurt you or kill you when he’s done.

To men like Donald Trump, woman are not thinking and feeling human beings. We are nothing more than play things to use and abuse whenever he feels like it, and then discard when he tires of us. We’re not really people and therefore we don’t need to give consent. Merely being in his presence is consent enough. After all, if we didn’t want to be grabbed, we shouldn’t have been within grabbing distance. The onus is always on the woman to not allow herself to assaulted or raped. Men like Donald Trump say they are unable to control themselves. She was drunk. She was wearing a short skirt. She was there. They see a pretty thing and they just act, and they know that most of the time they will get away with it.

This is not an indictment of all men. Far from it. There are so many wonderful, strong, loving, caring, supportive men out there. Men like my husband. This is about the pussy-grabbing, cat-calling, child-molesting monsters out there. A man-like creature who has the pretensions to the office of POTUS is one of them, and that must not be allowed to happen.

THE LAMB OF GOD

Mary gave birth to Jesus,

Jesus is the Lamb of God,

So Mary had a little lamb,

Which is very very odd,

He followed her to school,

Everyday with much conviction,

Until one Eastertime,

When they spoke of crucifixion,

The Lamb of God was not impressed,

Crucifixion was not cool,

He began to regret,

That he’d followed her to school!

T-SHIRT

She wears my t-shirt at my place,

Cuz it kind of smells like me,

It’s relaxed, and fun, and casual,

Which is how we like to be,

And when she wears my t-shirt,

There’s an olfactory transfer,

So when she’s gone I wear the t-shirt,

Cuz it kind of smells like her.

 

Tim on Tim…

…and The Replacements.

I love politics.  I love music.  This is not a secret.

Imagine my splodey-hearted-and-headed joy when I read that Tim Kaine loves The Replacements.  Imagine my bliss when he quotes “Bastards of The Young.”  Imagine my being unable to function for the rest of the day as I sit at my laptop and draw hearts in the air with one of my eight legs while dreaming of the potential Vice President and Paul Westerberg.  Together.  With Tim playing in the background.  All of the Tims.  All of the time.

There has been nothing redeemable about this shitshow of an election cycle.  My child cannot watch the debates, let alone the news, with me.  I have been called a Skype and an Oven Dodger.  We have heard “Grab ’em by the pussy” for the first time and it’s not Mrs. Slocombe doing the talking.  For someone who finds political theatrics intoxicating, this election has been the equivalent of drinking too much grain punch from a frat house garbage can and puking down the front of your shirt in front of the really adorable guy you had been trying to get with the entire time you were in school; a messy, public humiliation that everyone is talking about.

Until now.  Until Tim Kaine saved the day and restored hope to this bleak hellscape by speaking of the underrated brilliance of The ‘Mats.

Once I’m done coloring in my hearts, I’ll cross my eight legs and hope for a Hillary/Tim victory.  Not just to restore sanity to this frothy cauldron of doom, stupidity and hatred this country has become.  No.  But for an inaugural ball befitting a modern era and featuring The Replacements as they should be – loud and drunk.