Some dust has been bitten.

Another year of the Slice of Life Story Challenge comes to an end. I didn’t do as well this month as I’d hoped, but I’ve made it through to day 31. Having surgery early in the month knocked me for a much harder loop than I’d been anticipating. I missed posting a couple of days — which, considering how sleepy and silly some of my posts were, is probably more a gift to blog readers than anything to be sorry for. Much more importantly, I was supposed to be welcoming new folks into the slicing ranks by reading and commenting on their posts every day, and I deeply regret how hard I fell down on that promise.

I participated in this challenge in 2008, the very first year. That was also my first year of blogging. I’d only had my blog for a month when I stumbled onto the TWT blog and into this challenge. Such a lucky thing that I did! I absolutely credit that first challenge with pushing me across the line from maybe-I’ll-have-a-blog to being a blogger. So grateful to that original group of slicers and to all the great folks who’ve jumped into the challenge over the eleven years between that first run and this one.

What my blog is and how I use it has morphed fairly dramatically since 2008. It’s interesting to look back at early posts and see the ways my voice has changed, the ways it has stayed the same, how some of the more embarrassing posts still sound totally like me. I clearly have a voice (“a Voice“), and it’s interesting to hear it over time.

I’ve come to think of March as my blog-iversary because of this challenge. No matter how absent I’ve been from this space, I always find my way back for Slice of Life in March. I exhaust myself with daily posting … and then I’m ready-not-ready to dive into April and writing poetry all month. March reminds me why I like having a blog and primes me for the rigors of National Poetry Month.

Thank you Two Writing Teachers, for another excellent slicing challenge, for giving me the chance to read such an interesting cross-section of blogs and for getting me reacquainted with my own little corner of these internets.

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It’s the final day of the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! Hundreds of folks have been participating. If you haven’t been one of them, maybe next year will be the year you’ll join in!

Lost Weekend …

I’ve never actually seen Lost Weekend, but I think of it often, think of myself as having had a lost weekend. In my version of the plot, this never has anything to do with alcoholism, but with my life catching up with me and forcing me to shut down for a while. And, of course, I say all of that because this weekend has definitely been a Lost Weekend weekend.

My knee was super swollen, really stiff and hard to move. I canceled my Saturday plans so I could relax and stay off my feet. I slept. I slept. And then I slept some more. I slept so much, I lost the entire day. I forgot to write and post a slice, I forgot everything. When I tried to do anything, all I succeeded in doing was falling asleep. Yes, that random words post I put up on Friday made it clear that I needed sleep … but a whole day’s worth? I haven’t slept like that in a LONG time.

Still overly swollen when I woke up this morning. So I decided to postpone my Sunday plans and keep right on resting. I haven’t spent the whole of today sleeping, but I have rested, have stayed off my feet, have been icing regularly.

And now, as I get ready to sign off for the night and prep for my work week, I see that some of the swelling has gone down, that it’s a little less painful to move my leg. Result!

Going to work last week — even just for half days — suck every bit of energy from me. I’m going to try at least one full day this week, and I’m hoping to start physical therapy as well. All that is surely going to add up to another lost weekend on the horizon. We’ll see how it goes.

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep. I forget that sleep is the primary thing my body wants after surgery. Weekends like this one are my body’s way of forcing me to remember.

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It’s the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! With hundreds of folks participating, there’s more than a little something for everyone … and plenty of room for you to join in!

Do you hear what I hear?

There was a little piece about misophonia on NPR today. I’m glad that there has been an uptick in folks writing and talking about this condition. It means more people who deal with it will have the huge relief of knowing they aren’t nuts and aren’t alone. That was certainly what I felt when I learned that this awful thing that happens to me has a name. While I’m sorry to know that many other people suffer with misophonia, it was such an enormous comfort to know I wasn’t alone.

Misophonia is the hatred of sound — the hatred, to be clear, of specific sounds. Although there are a large number of sounds that can trigger a response, the most common are mouth noises such as yawning, chewing, and breathing. These sounds can trigger panic or rage, and sufferers describe their responses to sounds as being driven mad.

That has definitely been my experience, feeling as if I’m going insane when I hear certain sounds. My response has always been instant rage. And yes, that seems both funny and fitting since I am so often foaming at the mouth about something (case in point: yesterday’s post). But in reality, it’s not so funny. As a kid, I thought I was the most horrible person in the world because I would feel a driving, aggressive hatred for people I loved if I had to listen to them eating. I would be almost blinded by my fury in those moments. I couldn’t understand what kind of monster I must be to begrudge people the right to eat.

I was once prepared to quit a job because of misophonia. Back in the dark times, when I worked as a temp word processor, I had a long term assignment in the corporate office of a bank. My cubicle was across from a man who was the noisiest, sloppiest eater I’ve ever encountered. He was a disgusting eater, but his habits multiplied by my misophonia made him a public menace. I did whatever I had to in order to be away from him when he ate. And I was mostly successful … until a big project required us to work closely and work long hours and work through lunch. It was all I could do not to strike him. I called my temp agency and demanded a new placement. 

I was young and dopey then, didn’t realize that I couldn’t always just say what was true. When asked why I wanted a new placement, I was honest: “This man is a disgusting eater, and I can’t be around him.” I was told that wasn’t a good enough reason to leave a good job, and that if I chose to give up the placement, they probably wouldn’t be able to find me anything for a while. I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, it was leave or put my letter opener through his neck. (And, too, I was getting called for jobs from two other agencies, so I wasn’t worried about work.) If only I’d known about misophonia back then, known that I could have asked to be accommodated and that quitting didn’t have to be my only non-violent option.

The agency said that I’d need to tell my onsite supervisor why I was leaving, that they wanted the client to understand the problem was with me and my foolishness. No problem. I went to my supervisor at the bank and told her I’d be leaving immediately. Before I had a chance to say why, she looked at me with sympathy and said, “It’s Ken, isn’t it? Please don’t go. We’ll find you another place to sit, and you can work on a different project.”

Done and done. My paycheck — and Ken’s poor neck — saved.

That was a long digression, but I hope it makes clear the hideousness of misophonia. It’s little things. My cats clean themselves, and I want to put my head through a wall. People on conference calls breath heavily into the phone, and I have to bite my tongue on streams of profanity. It’s me putting on headphones whenever my coworker eats lunch at his desk. Little things. All. day. long.

Music helps. White noise helps. Sometimes meditation helps. And learning that misophonia is a thing helped. Not enough is known about misophonia (yet?) for there to be sure-fire tips, but an article I read that said getting more sleep and reducing stress could improve responses to sound triggers, and I’m certainly willing to give that a go — and more sleep and less stress is just bound to make my life better even if I’m still driven into a rage when I hear certain sounds.

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It’s the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! With hundreds of folks participating, there’s more than a little something for everyone … and plenty of room for you to join in!

Bedtime for Becky

(This is something I wrote early in February and then decided not to post. I was okay with my decision not to post. The moment for this commentary had passed, I had moved on to other things. Then this afternoon I was on the 4 train headed downtown and overheard a group of older white women saying some problematic things, and I decided to pull this piece out of my “dead drafts” pile and go ahead and post it. Also, I say “older” white women, but I, of course, have no idea what I’m talking about. I guessed them to be 60s and up, but they could have been closer to my almost-60 age. I’m posting it as-is, as it was when I wrote it: unfinished and chock full of disgust.)

So Monday, or as I like to call it: Old White Women Show Their Whole Asses Day. Yeah. First Barbara Ehrenreich, followed in quick-step succession by Katha Pollitt and Elaine Showalter. All of them coming out from behind the screens of their feminist, social justice respectability, flinging off their filmy veils and revealing their bright, shiny racism in all its bare-assed fabulousness.

Thank you all.

I’ll start by saying that no one is required to love Marie Kondo, or even like her. You’re certainly not obligated to read her book or watch her Netflix show or tidy your home. If nothing about her or her work sparks joy for you, that’s perfectly alright. Your life will continue apace, and so will Ms. Kondo’s.

But here’s what you are required to do. You are required to resist sinking into the pillow-soft comfort of your deeply-seated racism and colonizing xenophobia. No one needs to see or hear that mess. Punto. You don’t like Marie Kondo. Fine. If you don’t have reasons to dislike her other than 1) her foreign-ness, 2) her audacity to speak her own language, or 3) her physical appearance matching some old stereotypes you have about Asian women … than keep your thoughts to yourself.

And if you choose to show us your racism, don’t try a) to delete your ugliness without comment and b) replace it with further ugliness and then c) not respond to any of the much-deserved criticism you receive but instead d) try to reposition your ugliness and claim it was meant to express something else entirely and then e) tell everyone who isn’t buying your dainty pile of bullshit that they clearly can’t take a joke.

Oh look, Barbara: you did every one of the “don’ts.” Score!

Pollitt and Showalter had nothing to add to the xenophobia, but they slid so easily into exoticizing Kondo, describing her in just about every infantilizing, diminishing stereotype of Asian women.

I’m not surprised that criticism of Kondo fell so quickly into racism. How could it not have, given the steaming dung heap that is our white supremacist society? I’m not surprised, and still Ehrenreich, Pollitt, and Showalter surprised me.

And that’s my fault. I was surprised because I’d let myself be lulled into a false sense of safety, let myself be fooled into thinking their feminism had any room for women of color.

Every time I think I’ve girded myself against the scourge of White Feminism, I find myself pulled back in … and disappointed as thoroughly and painfully as every time before.

Now, for everyone fixing their mouths to tell me that Marie Kondo is, in fact, pretty and little, and pixie-like, and what the hell is wrong with anyone saying what is quite obviously just a statement of truth? Your “words have meanings” argument doesn’t go far enough. You’re absolutely right that words have meanings … but they also have history and context and carry the weight of their use to perpetuate oppression and othering and dehumanization. And you don’t get to have the meaning without the history and context.

If you wanted to describe me — a tall, fat, Black woman — as a pretty little pixie, there would be no backstory of stereotyping you’d be tapping into. Even the tiniest and most fairy-like of Black women haven’t been typecast in this way, which is precisely why it would probably never occur to you to use those descriptors for me. Describing me as a pixie might even make you sound interesting, turning all the pixie images on their heads. (Yes, I think I will assume this descriptor from this point forward, brand my self as “PixieGriot” instead of GirlGriot. Absolutely.)

So you could mess with people’s heads by calling me a pretty little pixie. But to attach those words to Marie Kondo when the fairy-like, submissive, pocket-sized Asian woman has been a stereotype for as long as there have been white people aware of Asian people … well, that’s not edgy and interesting. It’s just problematic. And, just as we don’t believe any of these jackasses currently in the news saying they didn’t know blackface was racist (looking at you, too, Gucci … you and your blackface mugger clothing), we absolutely don’t believe you when you say you didn’t know there were stereotypes about Asian women that your tweets were mirroring perfectly.

When I talk about white people needing to come get their people, this is one of the kinds of messes I mean. (Don’t think I don’t want you to come collect the assholes in blackface. You know better than that.) I expect white allies to come, gather these women and sit them the hell down. I expect allies to help these women a) shut the fuck up, b) understand and acknowledge why the things they posted were problematic, c) craft and post a real apology, one that doesn’t shift blame or pretend it was all a stupid misunderstanding.

This is easy allyship, but so important. The amount of time POC have to spend dealing with this kind of crap is ridiculous. Hearing or seeing these kinds of ass-out comments takes an emotional toll on us, too. If white folks stepped up and did the work with their fellow white folks, we could avoid all the stürm und drang these moments gin up.

We — people of color — are exhausted from this shit. Completely and utterly exhausted. Because it never stops coming at us. Ehrenreich, Pollitt, Showalter, and Neeson get attention because they’re high-profile, because they had audiences before their big racism reveals. For POC, it never stops. We don’t just get the scandal-mag headlines when a famous person steps into the spotlight. We get the daily slaps in the face from the myriad non-famous people around us.

I cannot help but think there’s no way any of this is news to white people. And yet, every time one of these signal posts of hate flashes on, there are white folks who are expressing shock, who throw up their hands and exclaim about what year we’re in and how can this be happening.

Yeah. Here we are. It’s 2019. And white folks — young, old, men, women — all out here showing their whole asses. And the hand-wringing and exclamations of shock only serve to tell me how much “good” white people don’t stay focused on this work because they don’t have to, how easy it has been for these good people to move on or not notice at all because none of these thousand cuts touches them. The shock and outrage tells me that folks have chosen not to pay attention.

So come on, good white people. Goodness isn’t good enough. And you know this. You need to gather your people. Embrace them. Lovingly take them in hand. Help them see their errors and learn a better way. White feminists … well, you have an even tougher job, I won’t lie. But that’s all the more reason for you to step up, to take on this messy and necessary work. (And remember, it isn’t the job of Black folks and folk of color to do this gathering. Racist yobs can’t hear us, can’t get past their defensive anger to understand anything we say. No. The intervention has to come from white people. There are POC who are willing to do this emotional labor — on exquisitely rare occasion, I am one of them — but that still doesn’t make it our job. No, it remains 100 percent the job of white people.)

Please note that I’m not only asking for white folks to call out problematic, racist fellow travelers. No. Because calling out isn’t the answer. It isn’t enough. Barbara Ehrenreich was swiftly and roundly called out. But she needed more than that. She needed someone to love on her, tell her with calm kindness all the ways what she tweeted was fucked up. Without that caring, out-of-the-spotlight attention and correction, we get Ehrenreich’s string of progressively worse tweets. We get her digging further into her mess.

We are only halfway through February, and this month is already awash in bullshit, already requires hip waders.

And then I decided not to post. There were so many excellent articles written about this mess, I set this piece aside. And then today, I sat in a subway car near six white women, friends who’d been into Manhattan for a nice lunch and a gallery show. One remarked on the fact that the rest of her afternoon would be spent on housework:

Woman 1: “Whoo! Don’t I wish I had that little Kondo bitch boxed up in my closet! Watcing her clean my house would definitely spark some joy!”

<laughter, from all but one woman>

Woman 2: “I seriously can’t stand her self-righteousness. If we needed some child-sized baby-woman to tell us what to do, we’d have asked for it long before now.”

Woman 1: “Yes, but a box in the closet would be great. I have an empty shoe box she could curl up in.”

<laughter, from all but the same one woman>

Woman 3: “She could fold something up tiny and use it for a pillow. All the comforts!”

<laughter, from all of the women>

Which was when I knew I’d have to come home and find this old essay and post it.

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In 2017, I took up Vanessa Mártir’s #52essays2017 challenge to write an essay a week. I didn’t complete 52 essays by year’s end, but I did write like crazy, more in 2017 than in 2015 and 2016 combined! I’ve decided to keep working on personal essays, keep at this #GriotGrind. If you’d care to join in, it’s never too late! You can find our group on FB: #52Essays Next Wave.

It’s March, so it’s the Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! Twelve years and going stronger than ever. Click over to read a few slices, see what that eclectic group of bloggers is up to. And maybe write some slices of your own this month!

La Impostora Has No Bedside Manner

I’m two days out from knee surgery. It’s hard to realize I had surgery Monday. That seems both like forever and five minutes ago. How am I home so soon? How am I home alone? How am I — for the most part — just fine?

My nausea is gone, which makes everything seem leagues better. And I was able to lie down to sleep, which also made today so much better than yesterday. Obviously, I am far from well, but I no longer feel as though a steamroller has just mashed me into the pavement. A clear improvement.

My friends have been trying to help me since I got home. So many people asking what I need, asking me to tell them how they can help, looking for ways to get my recovery off to a well-cared-for start. And that’s lovely. That’s what one should hope for from one’s friends … so why haven’t I taken advantage of a single offer of help?

Here is a place I was not expecting to find La Impostora. But here she is, standing between me and some quality TLC. Here she is, telling me that I don’t need anyone’s help, that I can’t ask people to help me because …

1. My house hasn’t been vacuumed.
2. It’s not as though I’m sick or anything.
3. I live too far away from everyone, and it’s not fair to expect folks to come out here just to bring me milk or clementines.
4. If I had done a better job preparing for this homestay, I wouldn’t suddenly find myself without milk and clementines.
5. Everyone is too busy to be running errands for you.

Okay, it’s true that my house hasn’t been vacuumed, that it is filled to bursting with wafting clouds of cat hair. But does that really mean I don’t deserve a little help right now? Why is it (still) so hard for me to ask for things I need, so hard for me to admit that I have needs I can’t necessarily take care of by myself right now? Why is La Impostora here telling me that, even when I’m two days out from surgery, I’m not worthy of my friends’ care?

Ugh.

She doesn’t want me to forget. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for changing my surgeon’s mind about the procedure I needed. So of course here is my forever-nemesis to rein me in, to make sure I appreciate just how much of a crybaby I am, to remind me that, because I pushed for the more invasive operation, the struggles I’m having now are my own fault, and I have to deal with the more difficult recuperation on my own.

But … I don’t have to listen to her. I can, instead, trust my friends when they say they want to help me. I can accept their offers of help and make these first days out from surgery a little easier. And maybe, just maybe, by saying these things “out loud” on this page, it will be easier for me to actually do this tomorrow. Perhaps just for the pleasure of pissing off La Impostora.

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It’s March, so it’s the Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! Twelve years and going stronger than ever. Click over to read a few slices, see what that eclectic group of bloggers is up to. And maybe write some slices of your own this month!

Sometimes that paper trail …

… is from a ticker tape parade!

Tuesday, I wrote about an unpleasant colleague, someone I cannot trust but with whom I have no option but to work. At the end of my workday, it was clear that I was needed to prepare for one of our ugly interactions.

So I prepared. I made a plan. I was going to go into work this morning so I’d have time to download our emails as backup for my telling of events. I was going to review the notes I’d taken in meetings to be sure I had all the necessary information I needed to feel confident of my position.

In the end, none of my preparation was necessary. The nonsense never materialized … and I have no idea why.

Okay, not entirely true. I have a suspicion of why. The late-Tuesday email that hinted at foolishness to come on Wednesday wasn’t addressed only to me. My colleague’s boss, my boss, and a couple of other senior staff were included. It was a bold move on my colleague’s part, but I think it backfired. Two of the women on that email have shown themselves to have no kind of time for that kind of mess. I’m thinking one or both of them shut the whole business down. And for this I am grateful.

Maybe this will mark a turning point in this relationship. Maybe my colleague will finally straighten up and fly right!

Hey, a girl can dream!

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It’s March, so it’s the Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! Twelve years and going stronger than ever. Click over to read a few slices, see what that eclectic group of bloggers is up to. And maybe write some slices of your own this month!

Me, a name I call myself.

Monday is my surgery. In preparation, I spent half a day at the hospital this week cycling through a round of pre-surgical screenings. I’ve had enough of these surgeries that these appointments feel pretty routine. I have favorite chairs in the different waiting rooms. I know where the free coffee is. I know which of the restrooms are cleanest. The biggest unknown is really just whether or not the phlebotomist will find my vein on the first try (this week the answer was yes!).

But there’s been a change in the pattern. As I checked in before the final appointment, the questions started the same as at each previous check-in, but then took a fresh breath.

The man taking my information began to look … pained somehow. He leaned forward conspiratorially, which was a little odd, a little alarming.

“I have to ask you … questions … about your … sexuality … your identity, about your sexual identity.”

“Oh! Cool! No one’s ever asked me about this before.”

He nodded, still uncomfortable. “It’s new. I have to ask.”

“Great. Please continue.”

This really is great. I hope all hospitals — and all everywheres are learning to expand their questionnaires, learning to expand their understanding of the full diversity of who we are as people, learning to be more inclusive and welcoming to people who don’t fit neatly into the pink and blue, cisgendered, binary boxes we’ve been categorizing folks into all our lives. It seemed pretty clear, however, that some work was still needed in terms of helping staff feel at ease asking the questions, helping them see the questions as okay to ask, not just mandatory.

“What gender were you assigned at birth?” He was still leaned forward, still speaking only just above a whisper.

“Female.”

“And what … and how would you describe your gender now?”

“Female.”

“And … well, okay.” He sat back, plainly relieved and ready to move on to the part of the interview with which he felt more comfortable.

“Those are all the questions?”

He looked surprised. “Well, no, but –”

“Shouldn’t you ask what pronouns I use?”

So here I’ll say that I don’t really have any idea what I’m talking about. It would be easy for me to move through his questions with all the answers he might expect me to give. I wasn’t trying to give that man a hard time. But part of me was curious to know what other questions had been added. And part of me wanted him to exercise his nervousness on me and not on someone for whom that conversation might have been more fraught. If he’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable, let him get that out of his system interviewing a person who hasn’t been made to feel othered and uncomfortable again and again and again.

“But you said female.”

“But that doesnt have anything to do with my pronouns.”

And here I have to stress again that I really and truly have no idea what I’m talking about. But it seems to me that my identifying as female doesn’t have to mean my pronouns are a given. I need to do some homework here and figure that out. In the moment, though, I didn’t want him to skip questions because of his assumptions about me.

“Please go ahead and ask the rest of the questions.”

He leaned forward again, sighing. “Your orientation?”

“Oh, okay. I guess straight.”

“You guess straight,” he said, shaking his head.

Yeah, I don’t know why I did that. I swear that I was not in any way trying to mess with him. I’ve done this a few times recently. Not long ago, without any warning or forethought, I started a sentence with: “I am, for all intents and purposes, a heterosexual woman …” Why did I say that? And what does it even mean? So, I wasn’t trying to mess with that man at the hospital, but clearly some messing is going on with me.

“And your pronouns?”

“I use she and they.”

“She and — that’s not a choice.”

“Really? What are my choices?”

“You can pick she, he, or zi.”

I have no idea whether or not “zi” has become wildly popular. I don’t know anyone who has chosen that pronoun. But even if I knew scores of people who had, “they” should still be an option. “They” is still a go-to choice for many people. Why would you have “zi” and not “they”?

“Zi? Serioiusly? They isn’t on your list?”

He shook his head. “You want zi?”

“No. I definitely don’t use that. But you have she, so I’ll go with that.”

“But you said she and they.”

“Yes, and she is one of your options, so please use she.”

“Not zi.”

“Not zi.” I smiled. “You know, it’s so good that the hospital asks these questions, but I think you need more options for the answers people might give you. They is pretty standard.”

“I’ll pass along that feedback.”

In the end, I think I exhausted that poor man. He seemed surprised that I didn’t have an issue with his questions, which made me wonder about the conversations he’d had with the other patients in the waiting area. He was a Black man, maybe in his 40s, and every other patient in the room was an elderly white woman. I would guess that at least a few of his conversations had been … prickly at best. So maybe he was pleased by my enthusiasm, even if he was also a little over me by the end.

My #bravenewworldindeed hashtag seems fitting here. I created it to highlight our descent into greed- and hate-fueled violent, lawless chaos things that upset me in the work of Trump and his masters and minions. But the hashtag fits in this polar-opposite context, too. We are walking ourselves and one another into new territory, territory where — if we do our work right — everyone will be welcomed, everyone will be included and safe and valued. And asking me my pronouns is part of that. And if the straights have to feel awkward and uncomfortable as we learn how to welcome everyone in, so be it. And it’s about time. And let’s get over ourselves and keep it moving.

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It’s March, so it’s the Slice of Life Story Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers! Twelve years and going stronger than ever. Click over to read a few slices, see what that eclectic group of bloggers is up to. And maybe write some slices of your own this month!

In 2017, I took up Vanessa Mártir’s #52essays2017 challenge to write an essay a week. I didn’t complete 52 essays by year’s end, but I did write like crazy, more in 2017 than in 2015 and 2016 combined! I’ve decided to keep working on personal essays, keep at this #GriotGrind. If you’d care to join in, it’s never too late! You can find our group on FB: #52Essays Next Wave.