Masks look great on you!

Masks look great on you!

I am amazed

I'm amazed at the strength of women.

Growing up I learned to despise my gender. Religion taught me that women are the root of all sin and suffering in the world (Eve), responsible for men's worst impulses, that we're loud and nagging and weak generally too much. I thought of myself as a "guy's girl," proudly had few girlfriends and suppressed anything feminine about myself.

And then and then and then.

Today at the coffee shop I chatted with the two baristas, both Gen Z women, and the discussion meandered to boyfriends and the (straight) male refusal to wear coats.

Give me space, one shouted, only half-joking, meaning from the guy in her life.

I admitted I couldn't co-habitate because I must absolutely have my own space. This led to the price of housing and how it was cheaper to live together even if you didn't want to. Women earn less and take on more emotional and household labor and our so-called liberal paradises are unaffordable and so we are forced into cohabitation just to survive.

Have a great day queen, they called as I left.

Yesterday, a friend confided she'd walked into a music store she'd never been in before. It was empty except for six or seven guys sitting together at the back. She hesitated a moment. Come on in, they said, which made her hesitate another second more.

Seems like kind of a bro fest, she said, and the men were offended. How could she think this?

They don't even sense their own privilege in the world. They attack us and force us to justify and re-explain our concerns and even then they're grudging. 

We're so strong. I'm amazed.

rest in power ALT

 This loss truly hurts. André Leon Talley was an iconoclast yes, and also someone I looked up to and even identified with. I too found transformation in the very white very privileged pages of Vogue. He was enthusiastic and gracious and made room for so many. Rest easy wonderful human. 

NPR's Sam Sanders, writer Saeed Jones and others discuss ALT’s success and precariousness in the white world of fashion. Also feeling like it’s time to re-watch “The Gospel According to André.”

plan to change to plan

I may have mentioned that planning is a laughable activity these days. Surprising no one, 2020-too is proving the rule, not the exception. This week was to be the start of a two-week holiday jaunt down the coast and east to New Orleans, but omicron and the lack of testing made me think it's best to delay a few weeks.

My s.o. is celebrating a birthday so we relocated to an Airbnb in a nearby neighborhood for a few nights. Or so we thought, until the drunk bro's arrived to party in the unit upstairs. A few hours of yelling, thumping and door slamming later, I complained, which enraged them into further stomping and hollering. At 1 am they pounded on my front door screaming Come outside, so we packed up and left, gunning the rental car onto a foggy dark street, my legs shaking so hard that I had to pull over and take deep breaths. I got my money back and we reconfigured the rest of the weekend but I'm tired and wrung out. My body feels like a couple of wrestlers pummeled me.

On the bright side, there were delicious pastries from a Salvadoran bakery, homemade enchiladas and breakfast tostadas, some long walks with coffee and a joint, and lots of Australian Open tennis. 

My only plan now is to enjoy the bright moments in each day, however brief.

deus ex cinema

Many Sundays are movie days for me. I chef up some popcorn, grab a beverage and hit the couch to watch one, two, even three movies, anything that looks interesting or fun. It feels luxurious to give myself these hours to watch what I want. The only rule is if I'm not enjoying it, move on and and find something else. 

Last week I watched "Icarus," a documentary that starts out as a look at the world of doping in cycling and morphs into a real-world thriller involving a crooked Russian scientist, a massive scandal and at least one suspicious death. 

I also plowed through "Justice League," the Zack Snyder cut. Cyborg and Flash were by far the most interesting and fun characters. DC really is a vibe killer, and not subtle when it comes to family and romantic melodrama (will Wonder Woman ever pass the Bechdel test?). When Superman stood on screen shirtless, his gut sucked in, chest hair carefully shaped and manicured, I cackled out loud. At least Ben Affleck seems to realize that Batman is ridiculous and plays him as louche and disaffected.

And speaking of superheroes, I also watched the "Hawkeye" series, which for me was mostly successful due to its lack of focus on Jeremy Renner. I truly enjoyed the up-and-comer archer played by Hailey Steinfeld, as well as Echo, the complex enforcer who is Native American and a deaf woman and fights to kill.

cautiously cautious

It's been a week of birthday and vacation prep. I have a lot of cappies in my life and trying to be festive and also safe-ish is a challenge during year 3 of this sheeit.

****I'm sick of discussing the pandemmy and yet it's ALL we talk about. ALL of us. ALL of the time. Even when we don't want to. It's the text, the sub-text, the meta, everything. Always.

Anyway. 

Last weekend I ordered cupcakes and cookies and spent half a day traversing the city in a Zipcar (sitting at 1/2 a tank and missing its gas card, naturally), delivering treats and saying masked, sidewalk hellos to friends. After last year's lonely trauma I couldn't risk another spiral. And it turned out mostly great! Lots of smiles and air hugs and catch-up chats and one inadvertent merge onto eastbound 520.

Then an hour at a lakefront park with 3 friends, some Prosecco and chocolate popcorn and the remaining cookies. And finally home for Indian food and some family and friend Zooms.

Another day my niece brought me homemade chocolate tarts, piped with white flowers and dusted with edible gold dust. 

There was a moment on my friend's front steps, when we realized we haven't laid eyes on each other in two years. If I think about it I'll cry, I said. 

We just keep soldiering along, vaxxing and masking and waiting for better times, still thinking that they're just around the corner. I want to believe this is true, but it's getting harder to be optimistic. We're radicalized now. The government ain't going to do much, and a third of our fellow humans don't give a rat's ass about anyone else. 

We're all we got.

There's no going back. Only forward. Into what's next.

what time is the strike happening

 

auto correct!

My word processing program (go LibreOffice) auto corrected men to menace today.

So, there's that.

welcome two aught two two and please be kind

 

airbnb view