Texan who was tricked by Used Husband into moving to Milwaukee. Fomenting feminist revolution based on potty parity, pockets, and psleeves. Bad bacon eater. Also, cats. Also, REVOLUTION.
My friend lives in a state where abortion is legal. Let’s say New York.
Her daughter lives two hours away across the border in a state where abortion is legal but barely. Let’s say Pennsylvania.
Daughter and her husband – both in their early 30s – want to start a family.
Friend has told daughter repeatedly that once she’s pregnant, if anything happens – if there is any threat to the pregnancy – to get in the car and come straight to New York. Do not go to the hospital in Pennsylvania.
“She doesn’t seem to recognize the gravity of the situation,” my friend said.
“It seems like young women don’t know how bad this is,” I agreed.
“They take it for granted,” friend said. “Which we wanted them to do. They have no idea.”
She paused. “But then I guess I used to take the separation of church and state for granted.”
We both used to take democracy for granted.
Mr T and I were in Spain a few months ago. Spaniards are horrified at the possibility of another orange presidency.
They remember.
They remember what a dictatorship is like.
So do the Chileans. I lived in Chile a few years after Pinochet stepped down. Even then, people did not talk about politics – they still didn’t feel safe. I had friends whose family members had been Disappeared. A friend’s father had died of a heart attack because he dared to have it in the evening after curfew had started and they couldn’t take him to the hospital.
But there are always the blind ones. The complicit ones. A Chilean woman told me that at least during la dictadura, there was no rape.
I shook my head and answered that during the dictadura, nobody reported rape.
We have taken so much for granted.
We have been lucky.
Not special.
Lucky.
Nobody in Chile thought they would have a dictator. Chile was a democracy!
Nobody in Spain thought they would have a dictator. Spain was a democracy!
And yet.
This is a guess, but I am pretty sure that neither Franco nor Pinochet said – before they seized power – that they would be a dictator. “But only for a day.”
An accomplished woman who has done more than they could ever hope to do with their petty little lives.
An accomplished woman who dares to laugh.
She’s laughing at them, they are sure.
They know she’s thinking about how she made it through law school and passed the bar and got elected more than once to public office and how she’s faced down criminals and hasn’t blinked.
They know that if she can bring down cheaters and frauds, she can also expose them.
They’re thinking about how she would eviscerate them. How standing in her light would cast deep shadows on their flaws and failings.
It’s bad enough to look bad compared to another man.
But to look bad compared to a woman?
And especially a woman they would want? A beautiful, warm, accomplished woman?
A woman who would never even look twice at the likes of them because what have they ever done?
Is there anything worse for a mediocre man?
Someone on facebook wrote that Kamala “was Willie Brown’s mattress – oops! mistress!”
When I noted that trump paid hush money to a woman he slept with while he was married to someone else, this guy responded that it’s not illegal to pay hush money and that he tries not to let a politician’s personal life affect his opinion of the politician’s professional life.
“So why did you bring up Harris’ dating life?” I asked.
He did not have an answer.
They hate women they can’t control.
They think they should be in charge.
They think our gains are at their expense and that we are taking from them things they deserve simply because they are white men.
There’s a guy in my neighborhood. Let’s call him Talky Tom.
He’s the backyard neighbor of my friend Delightful Denise.
A few years ago, the fence between TT and DD’s yard rotted and fell.
DD started to replace it, but TT got upset. The fence would block the sun from the plants in his yard!
TT was correct.
This would happen if DD put up a new fence.
(Let me note that we do not have any laws about access to sunshine here.)(And TT did not have that sunshine before the fence fell.)
So DD didn’t put up the fence.
And TT’s flora started encroaching on DD’s yard.
Her peonies did not survive the onslaught.
TT would see DD in her yard and come over to talk.
Which he does a lot of.
A. Lot.
DD planted some shrubs between their yards.
“I don’t even like those shrubs!” she said. “But I wanted a barrier.”
It didn’t work plus they cost money.
I was hanging out with DD in her yard when TT came out and started talking to us.
I have experience in this sort of thing – I spent ten weeks traveling over land from Chile to Austin, back in the days when I was apparently catnip to South and Central American men, who saw a woman traveling alone as a woman in search of companionship. That’s when I learned the fine art of ending a conversation quickly – especially a conversation I didn’t even start.
I applied this skill to TT.
“I’m so sorry, TT, but I’m going to have to steal DD from you!” I said cheerfully as I walked away. “We’re in the middle of something that can’t wait!”
DD followed me to her garage.
“THANK YOU!” she said. “Honestly my other neighbors come outside – they say hi – and then they go on about their business. But TT likes to talk!”
“Remind me again why you don’t rebuild that fence?” I asked DD.
She sighed. “He doesn’t want it and I’m afraid of hurting his feelings.”
I shook my head. “He is clearly not at all concerned about hurting your feelings!”
When I see little kids, I ask them if they are huggers or fist bumpers.
I tell them, “My feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t want to hug me.”
But what I really need to say is, “It doesn’t matter if my feelings are hurt. You’re allowed to hug or not hug no matter how someone else feels. You are allowed to put your feelings about hugging first.”
Remember my friend Joan? Who went to prison for a few weeks? And was reluctant to move to a seat away from the Loud Eater?
I saw her again yesterday. She’s back home now. We told the story about the Loud Eater to her daughter, who is visiting from out of state.
Joan explained that she felt bad about changing seats. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings!”
“But he didn’t care about your feelings!” I reminded her.
“I know!” she answered. “And after you left, when they put me in the new seat, I thought about what you said. I had thought I could endure the Loud Eater for 21 days but then I thought WHY SHOULD I?”
“Good for you!” I said.
“But then they put me next to the Underwear Guy,” she continued.
“Yeah, you told me that,” I said.
“And he was so obnoxious! He sat down and asked me, ‘Are you wearing clean underwear?'”
“He asked WHAT?” I exclaimed. “Damn! Will the obnoxious men never leave us be?”
Joan looked around the cafeteria, wondering where to sit.
Even when you’re 101 years old and staying in an assisted living facility for a few weeks, it stinks to be the New Girl, not knowing anyone.
She finally saw an empty seat and made her way to it.
“When I sat down, nobody introduced themselves,” she said. “Nobody said hi.”
She turned to the people next to her and greeted them.
The man on her Good Side (the side with the hearing aid) just grunted in response.
And then he continued eating.
Loudly.
Really really loudly.
“I think that’s why the seat was empty,” she told me. “That man has some sort of disability where he can’t eat easily. It sounds like he’s grinding his food in his throat. He makes so much noise. It’s awful.”
I learned about the Loud Eater when I called Joan a few days after she had moved into assisted living.
I heard about him again when I visited a few days later.
“It’s unbearable,” she said. “He’s so loud. I can’t stand it. I don’t know if I can take two more weeks of this. The hacking. The phlegmy sounds. It’s disgusting.”
An attendant – a young woman, maybe in her mid 20s – knocked on her door, then walked in.
(Which I guess is common at assisted living? That they just come into the room without waiting for a “come in?” Maybe those are the rules. Most of the residents are not as with it as Joan.)
“Hi Joan,” she said. “Remember me? I’m Belle.”
“What’s wrong with the man who sits next to me and eats so loudly?” Joan asked.
“Joan!” I said. “You know they can’t tell you that!”
Belle laughed. “He has problems eating. We usually puree his food.”
But she didn’t explain why the Loud Eater had problems eating, which is what we really wanted to know. What is his condition?
“Do you want us to move you to a different seat?” Belle asked.
“No,” Joan answered. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
I gasped. “Joan! You are 101 years old. If you don’t get to prioritize your own feelings by that age, there is no hope for the rest of us.”
Belle agreed. “It’s really no problem to move you.”
Joan shook her head. “I don’t want him to feel bad,” she said.
“But what about you?” I asked. “What about how you feel?”
She shook her head.
It never leaves us, does it?
The desire not to offend? Not to rock the boat?
The desire to please?
The desire to meet external standards for acceptability?
I have seen women in their 80s in the gym locker room carefully primping their hair and applying lipstick.
When do we get to be free of these demands? When can we just *be* without worrying about what other people will think?
She looks fabulous! I am envious of her beautiful skin. She is also in fabulous shape, having been a dedicated gym goer her entire life.
But.
Damn.
Can’t we just *be*?
Can’t we just look our age and have that be OK?
Before Joan moved into the facility, she asked the director if there was assigned seating.
“He said no,” she said. “But when I was working as a dietician consultant to nursing homes, there was always so much drama about where people sat in the dining room. So I was concerned.”
“So you can move!” I told her. “There are no rules about where you sit!”
She shook her head. “I was raised Baptist. We’re supposed to think about other peoples’ feelings. How will that man feel if I move to a different seat?”
I laughed. “Joan, I can guarantee you that he is not worrying about your feelings when he grunts and grinds his food. I promise you he is not at all worried about his impact on you.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm,” I told her.
Joan gave me a tour of the facility. As we walked to the dining room, we ran into Belle.
“Joan, I found you a new seat!” she announced. “You can sit there for supper tonight.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” Joan said.
I looked at Belle. “When are we women going to worry more about ourselves than about total strangers?” I asked. “Women have got to get better about this.”
“It can be hard!” Belle agreed. “But Joan – I really don’t even think he will notice.”
I called Joan two days after I visited her.
“Well?” I asked. “Did you move to the new seat? How was supper? Is it better away from the Loud Eater?”
“YES!” she answered. “I can still hear him! But it’s not so loud! And you know what? I don’t think he even noticed I wasn’t there! I’m so relieved. I had thought I could tough it out but it was so awful.”
“I told you so!”
She continued. “But now I have the letch who talks about underwear instead. He was going to sit at the table with two women but they told him he couldn’t sit there – they didn’t want to hear him talk about underwear. I guess there is a hierarchy here. So he sat at my table instead. And he started singing the underwear song. But I can tune that out. At least it’s not phlegm sounds.”
Texan in Exile 