ter⋅ror⋅ism
-noun
- the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes
- the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization
- a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government
I am unspeakably sickened by today’s murder of Dr. George Tiller, a man who dedicated his life to womens’ health, despite myriad intimidation tactics and at least one previous attempt on his life by psychotic idealogues who piously claim to be “pro-life.” Because my feelings at the news of this loss are so surprisingly strong, my instinct is to say that I’m as devastated as if I had known Dr. Tiller. But that would be insulting to those who did know him and love him, because there is no way my grief could ever compare to theirs. I mourn alongside them, though. And I wish I’d known him. He sounds like the kind of human being I would have liked to have known.
The method and unjustness of Tiller’s death is horrifying. It’s stomach-turning and fist-pounding and knee-buckling all at the same time. That a self-righteous whack-job could walk into a church and gun a man down during his time of worship simply because a part of the man’s job is disagreeable, is an unfathomable tragedy. It’s a tragedy for his family and his patients. But it’s also a devastating tragedy for women everywhere in this country.
It is disturbing on a molecular level because it feels like the proverbial shot fired from the bow of a ship, an open declaration of war. Of course, this war has been on for a very long time as this is not an isolated incident: Violence at the hands of “pro-lifers” is uncomfortably commonplace. But this feels particularly frightening given U.S. Marshals are being deployed to protect workers of women’s health clinics and the patients who seek their services.
Imagine being a woman in Wichita who, tomorrow, needs to walk into a Planned Parenthood to get her birth control pills. Or a pap smear. Or counseling. Or, yes, an abortion. Imagine being the people who work in these much-needed clinics all over the United States, a country whose Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose. Women should not be afraid to make choices about what is best for their health. Doctors and nurses and administrators and counselors should not be afraid to do the work they’ve been trained to do. That it should be so is wholly un-American.
The man who murdered Dr. Tiller is a terrorist and those in the pro-life movement who support what he’s done are terrorist sympathizers. They are Evil-Doers. These vile people are different from those 19 men who flew planes into the twin towers only in the God they worship.
The fresh bikini wax pays in spades
While we were getting ready to take a bath this morning:
“Mama?”
“Yes, honey.”
“I love you.”
“Well, I love you more.”
“And I like your vagina hair. It doesn’t touch my butt anymore. ”
“…”
Golden girls: Three weeks, two friends, one dog and a compact car
The first postcard arrived within days of my suggesting that The Gaydi Project document her road trip. I bought a map of the United States to hang on my daughter’s bedroom wall and planned to line my mother’s route with the postcards as they arrived. I thought it would be fun for my kid to see where her grandmother and my godmother were headed. Also, it was my way of keeping tabs. And learning my states. And riding shotgun in absentia.
Dear Ruby, I’m in Washington D.C. with Mary Jane. We took Perrito to the White House but couldn’t find Bo (Sasha and Malia’s dog). I love you madly. Yer Tutu
My thrill at the notion of a meandering road trip with a best friend was matched ounce for ounce by my daughter’s apathy, an indifference that should have been predictable. Running to the mailbox was exciting, sure. But listening to me read the postcards was no competition for that shiny object right over there! After four years as a mother, I’m still reconciling the fact that parenting is almost always the vision of reality colliding with the reality of reality. Reading the first, second and third postcards out loud to an empty room, it occurred to me that perhaps this is why my mother didn’t invite me along for any part of her journey.
This trip was at least two years in the making. It took almost that long for my godmother to sell her house in Pittsburgh, a length of time that, one could argue, adds some legitimacy to Sienna Miller’s 2006 assessment of the city. No sooner was the offer accepted than my mother bought a plane ticket and headed east, losing her fancy prescription sunglasses somewhere between boarding and deplaning the red-eye.
Not being one to wallow in setbacks, she bought a hat and carried on. (Fifty bucks says her shades are on her desk at home.)
She helped tie up the loose ends in Shittsburgh, and then Mary Jane, my mother and her yarmulke-wearing Chihuahua piled into the car and pointed it toward Seattle in a squiggly, we-don’t-have-any-place-to-be kind of way. The goal was Route 66 via Graceland.
Dear Ruby, Here is a delicious recipe from Elvis’ Kitchen. It’s for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Only make it in an emergency. I love you! Tutu
Though these two adventurers are not fugitives—as far as I know—I could only envision Thelma & Louise. I saw red lipstick, twisting cigarette smoke and billowing scarves. I saw Brad Pitt with his hair dryer stuffed into the waistband-holster of his jeans and a car soaring off a red-rock cliff. I saw sexy. I saw dangerous.
“No!” my mother hooted when I mentioned my visions on the phone during one of my check-ins. “We’re Lucy and Ethel and Little Ricky!”
This was hardly reassuring. Just what the interstate needs, two Vitameatavegamin Girls behind the wheel. Sexy: No. Dangerous: Terrifically.
“Well, are you having fun?” I asked.
“Oh, Aaryn—we’re having a blast!”
MJ and The Gaydi Project—I think I’ve coined a band name—visited friends in Chicago, cut through St. Louis, attended a hoedown in Tulsa thrown in their honor and survived Amarillo.
Dear Ruby, I’m getting closer to you everyday… & I’m coming via this old road. Right now I’m in the state of Texas. Pray for me (or ask your parents for bail money). Love, Tutu
They stopped in Santa Fe and scooted through bustling Prescott before detouring to San Diego, where they’d committed to a babysitting gig. The entire trip had been problem-free until they exited College Avenue on their way to my place. My mother was driving when they were rear-ended and couldn’t say definitively whether she’d slowed down or stopped. (Neither of them was hurt, thank God, because I needed a night out like Dick Cheney needs someone to cut his mic.) The silly man who hit them took off, but Thelma and Louise—er, Lucy and Ethel—tailed him until he gave himself up. You might be intimidated, too.
At first glance, these two 60-something women are totally different: MJ is reserved and L.L. Bean-y, while my mother is flamboyant and Eileen Fisher-ish. MJ is an extraordinary chef. My mother excels at preparing beige food. MJ smokes cigarettes. My mother smokes MJ. None of this really matters, though, because they’re both touched by a little bit of The Crazy and appreciate cocktail hour. At breakfast.
During college, the two of them spent a summer in San Francisco with six other women. There, they frequented bars using fake IDs and my mother picked up on men using a fake accent, which dissipated in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed. I don’t know, but if I had to guess, based on their personalities, I’d say Mary Jane pretended she didn’t speak English at all and maintained the ruse for the duration.
Though they eventually did it on different coasts, each woman raised a family, ended a marriage, created a successful career and maintained a friendship that has never failed to pick up where it left off the last time they said goodbye. It truly is something to spend time with them together.
Now my unintentional heroes are making their way up the 101, the rear bumper hanging a little lower than when they set out. At last contact, they were someplace along the Oregon Coast, a tad too close to sheer drop-offs for my taste. MJ is jobless and homeless, but my mother has an appetite and an empty daybed. I think the relationship is going to last. If they don’t fly off that cliff.
I’m hoping they make it to their destination safely. Until then, I am anxiously awaiting the next postcard. I hope it’s addressed to me.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat, sans pictures. Also, no pic of MJ not included since I sort of feel like I’ve exposed her quite enough for her taste. Again, just a guess. However, this story was written with blessings.)
America’s Finest City
San Diego gets a new (gulp!) slogan
It was a most unfortunate waste: The contents of my wine glass came shooting through my nostrils when my friends told me about San Diego’s new slogan. We were at Mosaic, shrugging off our workweek, and given the restaurant trend to skimp on acoustic tiling, I wasn’t sure I’d heard them correctly. “Happy, whaaaa…? I yelled across the tiny table at my best girls.
“Happy happens!” they shouted back in unison. “Kinda like an erection,” my husband would say when I told him about it later.
I couldn’t help but laugh—and chortle—when I heard San Diego’s slogan du jour, one that had to have been invented by a focus group comprising 6-year-olds. Or a Bible-study group. On some level, I suppose it was true: The wine sprayed because happy happened. Imagine.
Slogans are all the rage, of course. Los Angeles recently offered an apropos, “That’s So LA,” which sounds like it’s dripping from the tongue of a taught-faced girl born in The Valley. New Orleans is predictable with, “We’re Jazzed You’re Here,” but it’s sweet and definitely makes me want to take my shirt off for beads. The Twin Cities plays on the twofer thing with “Minneapolis / Saint Paul: More to Life.”
Salt-of-the-earth Madison gets deep and crunchy with statements rather than a single slogan: “Grow Emotionally, Grow Intellectually. Let Your Heart Wander. Let Your Mind Wonder.” Ya dig? And “The City That Reads,” “Charm City” and “Crabtown” have all been attributed to Baltimore at one time or another. But a local named Alison painted the most vivid picture when she offered her personal slogan on a travel blog: “The Wire Wasn’t Kidding.” I heart you, Alison, wherever you are.
By comparison, “Happy Happens” is—wah-wah-waaah. It’s sort of like cold water on boy parts, if you know what I mean.
Never mind that “happy” is an adjective and “happens” is an intransitive verb, which illustrates the importance of no longer D-listing our city schools when setting priorities. Never mind that the slogan ignores San Diego’s rich culture in its blatant generic-ness. And never mind that Forbes recently rated San Diego the ninth most overpriced place to live in America, tied with Newark, N.J. Newark doesn’t have a slogan that I could find, but the state just signed on with, “New Jersey and You: Perfect Together.” Not enough to win a visit from me anytime soon, but props to Jersey for grammar, yo.
Despite these nitpicky details, “Happy Happens” is the $8-million catchphrase designed to boost our third-largest industry. According to Mayor Jerry Sanders, the Happy Happens movement “is going to invite [travelers] to experience what many of us are looking for in these stressful economic times, a positive outlook and happy mood.” In other words, it is the carrot being dangled in front of the financially strapped masses, tempting them to put the plane tickets on what’s left of their credit cards and leap across our pothole-laden streets in their matching Crocs.
Entertainment in these parts ain’t cheap, though. One day at the World Famous San Diego Zoo starts at $26. Kiddos begging for Legoland? That will cost $53, and that’s just for one child’s ticket. The cost of watching a few Orcas perform circus tricks to the deafening sounds of a hair band at SeaWorld will cost $55 for a single greasy kid to trip through the turnstiles. And don’t forget the newly increased sales tax being added to entrance fees and snacks and knick-knacks and beers.
Still. It doesn’t matter. Because happy happens, don’t you know?
Or I should say, happy HAPPENS, which is pretty much how it appears on the sunny website of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. It was there that I was greeted with the full sunshiny seriousness of this campaign. The word “happy” looks like it was written by a girl who dots her i’s with little hearts. There were flower decals, yellow go-carts and children jumping on fluffy hotel beds (what’s the hotel tax, again?). I tried to watch the happy HAPPENS video, but all I got was audio—no picture—which didn’t make me very happy. The song “Smile On” was snappy, so then I felt sort of happy. But then I listened to it again and it grated, so I wasn’t happy any more. I was annoyed. And frustrated. It was a little schizophrenic.
There was a banner to click for “Happy Deals,” but I didn’t see any button for happy endings, which, to be honest, is always a big selling point when I choose a vacation spot. And I was greeted by an onslaught of happy photos: There’s a Blackberry with a stylus-drawn smiley face, a cappuccino with a cinnamon smiley face sprinkled in the foam and an image of the Gaslamp Quarter sign, a chem-trail smiley face suspended in the blue sky above. There were so many smiley faces that I wanted to punch Forrest Gump in the kidney for having ever wiped his face on that T-shirt in the first place.
I love San Diego. I do. It’s a beautiful place to live. And the promo is convincing. If I didn’t already live here, I’d probably come here to get me some happy. But the full flavor of this city can’t rightly be reduced to a two-word slogan that focuses solely on stereotypes without alluding to its soul. I wish the decision-makers had looked beyond the happy-happy-joy-joy of Ren & Stimpy for inspiration. Personally, I think a Ron Burgundy-inspired tag line would have been savvy, something that would have brought throngs of thrill seekers and nature lovers alike:
Paradise is a whale’s vagina. Come see for yourself!
Who wouldn’t want to mortgage the house to check it out?
(Published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
La famille
Le pere
et la mere
et la fille.
C’est une artiste.
It just sounds so much better in french…as if it isn’t magnificent enough already.
Help is on the way, Dah-lings!
The Gaydi Project is currently on a cross country road trip with her lifelong BFF. MJ is my Godmother. She was the Maid-of-Honor of my parent’s wedding and her sons are the brothers I always wanted. She is extremely cool and smart and funny as shit. And she’s a talented chef. My visits to Seattle will now be filled with gourmet versus freeze-dried feasts, because after nearly two years, MJ finally sold her house in Pittsburgh and is moving there to be near her grown boys.
So! The Gaydi Project and MJ are driving from Pittsburgh to Seattle. They’re currently attending a Ho-Down (is that how you spell it?) somewhere in Oklahoma, thrown in their honor by my mother’s friend Jon. I cannot describe how badly I wish I were in the back of their car on this journey, with my voice recorder in hand and every bit of camera equipment I own at my disposal. I’m sure it’s all Thelma & Louise. I truly hope they don’t go off that cliff. And I wonder where they’ll meet their Brad Pitt…
I’m re-posting my piece about her for Mother’s Day. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.
******************************************************
My Mother, Myself: I love her but can I avoid becoming her?
“Would you care for an olive? Auntie Mame says olives take up too much room in a little glass.”
—Patrick Dennis
Being a mother makes you crazy. I used to think The Crazy was directly correlated to the act of squeezing a human being out of a too-small opening, making me immune because I adopted. Initially, there is no evidence anything has changed, but The Crazy surfaces and intensifies over time. Trust me. I have the craziest mother of anyone I know.
Gaye Donna came from Seattle for a brief visit last month. She had business in L.A., so she stopped in for two nights, shimmied her way north for a bit and flew back to San Diego on her broomstick for two more nights. Sam and I have a strict Four Day Rule for visiting parents, should they choose to opt out of the enthusiastically encouraged hotel option. Pointing out that we never stipulated the four days had to be consecutive, my mother creates fun combinations of overnighters, discussing at great length all the various permutations, thus complicating the simplest of situations. It is in this manner that her craziness begins to permeate my world before she ever explodes her suitcase in my living room.
To an outsider, two nights here, two nights there might seem like a cakewalk. But remember The Crazy. It’s a good crazy if you’re not her daughter, a very difficult-to-endure crazy if you are.
Gaydi is like Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell’s Mame, not Lucille Ball’s Mame—an important distinction). Only, she’s Mame with attention deficit disorder and blurred vision. She’s Mame on a shaken martini, two-day-old coffee, stale Red Vines and lots of kind bud to even it all out.
I call her The Gaydi Project because being with her is an event. She necessitates more patience than navigating the Cox Communications call center and the concentration level of a tourist trying to spot a green flash. My Auntie Carroll—who herself is bat-shit crazy—used to lovingly refer to her as “Gaye Donna Marie Donnetta Louise Vagina Clitoris Unique,” a bit of a tongue twister, sure, but it stuck—because it fit. Gaydi’s friend Jon explains away her nuttiness to strangers by claiming she’s a world famous Russian ballerina. “Don’t y’all know who she ee-is?” He’ll say in his charming Okie drawl. “Why, she’s Whirrled! FAY-mous!” By this time people have already gravitated to the Pied Piper, their eyes swirling under the hypnotic powers of her eccentricity.
This is a woman who doesn’t much care to color inside the lines, whereas I like to boldly define them, making for a tumultuous, sometimes treacherous bond between us. She careens wildly through life much the same way as she smashes against and bounces off curbs when she drives, which is, thankfully, infrequent. She prefers the freefall of life; I like to keep my feet on the ground. She likes to start little fires, figuratively and literally; I run around behind her with an extinguisher.
Her wild conversational gesturing has been known to knock a glass of port so magnificently that spilled wine has splattered into the corners of adjoining rooms. She misplaces necessities—glasses, keys, purse, bus pass—with such regularity that going to the grocery store requires a dedicated event planner. She chews ice vigorously; no other mastication has ever made ice seem more jam-packed with flavor. Her little Chihuahua wears a service-dog vest so she can take him to restaurants and circumvent additional charges for air travel. Sometimes she dresses Perrito in a yarmulke.
When I picked her up at the airport several weeks ago, she immediately kicked off both shoes and began picking at the dried skin on her heel, a habit that makes me want to replace her morning yogurt with Eucerin and caused one of our more pointed arguments.
“You know, it’s the oddest thing,” she said in the car after I grumbled that she was Doing. It. Again. “Your brother comes over and I sweep. I have to sweep. I can’t help it. And I get in your car and, without even realizing it, I pick.” With that, she chuckled and flicked a little bit of calcified flesh out the window.
“Well,” I said. “At least you’re throwing the detritus of your foot outside instead of leaving it on the floor mat like before. I’d say that’s progress.”
We laughed and she put her shoes back on. In recent years, The Gaydi Project and I have found some middle ground, each of us becoming a little less of who we are, to the betterment of who we are together. We’re more conscious of stepping around each other’s last nerve rather than directly on it. She works hard to let go when I become tense in response to her loosey-goosey style. And I work hard to let go when she takes my latest New Yorker—the one I haven’t even cracked yet—into the bathroom, getting poop fumes all over it, rendering it unreadable. So maybe I haven’t let that one go just yet. But I kept my trap shut when it happened. I’d say that’s progress.
Minutes after breaking the No Reading Material in the Bathroom Rule*, my mother accidentally Super Glued her lip to her teeth, which is the danger of impatiently trying to yank the lid off the tube with your mouth. In her defense, there is no warning about this particular hazard anywhere on the label. “Oh my God!” I yelled at her before I folded in half with laughter. “You’re not supposed to eat it, you’re supposed to sniff it!” We were a mere 10 hours into her stay.
Our bookendish adventure carried on like this, The Gaydi Project crashing through my world and me trying not to short-circuit from frustration. I held my ground. But I’m beginning to wonder whether The Crazy isn’t actually contracted by cumulative exposure.
*The Gaydi Project claims she couldn’t follow this rule because she didn’t know of it’s existance.
New ‘do
I began these Zulu knots (or Bantu knots or “Chinese boys”) last night, but started too late and had to finish tonight. Though time consuming, it’s a very easy style to do.
The hardest part is, well, the part. Or, rather, the many parts. And more than that, the combing of the sections. Ruby isn’t so down with the comb out. But when she wears her purple princess dress, she has Super Brave Magical Powers.
With the help of some deliciously scented Tui Hair Oil, my Fearless Princess looks more like an African Queen.
What are you doing this weekend? How about next?
If you live locally and are dying to find out more about sin that takes place in the corners of an ordinary day, please come check out this art show. It just so happens that six of my photographs were selected for display. I know: It’s shocking that any of my work could be considered sinful in the least.
The artist’s reception takes place on Saturday from 3-5 p.m. Come say hello. My standing rule applies: No tomato throwing. This show is in a private residence and I would hate for the owner to have to clean up the splatters.
A quick lesson about the universe
Ruby had a fairly good showing last night in the Piss Poor Behavior competition she’s been having with herself. I don’t know if it’s an almost-four thing or if it’s the change in her daily routine or both. She started going to a new school two weeks ago, which subsequently closed down amidst all the flu hysteria, which subsequently sent her back to her old school. Whatever the issue(s), we’ve had some special moments of late.
Shortly after recovering from her latest spit-swat-stinkeye-cry fest, she walked toward me for a hug. On her way into my arms, she stubbed her toe on her art table at the foot of her bed. Crying ensued.
“Oh, honey,” I said as I wrapped her up in my arms. “Do you know what that was?”
“Whaaaaat, Mama?” She asked.
“That was instant karma.”
!