Different words for...

Spinster. Crone. Witch. Old Maid. Hysterical. Past Her Prime. Shrew. Hag. Harpy. Harridan. “Fucking bitch.”

On Friday, in anticipation of, as we joke in the DC-area, a storm bringing “1-78 inches of snow,” I came to West Virginia. Our animal caretaker does not like to drive in icy conditions, I happened to really need a break—read: alone time—, and I despair when I think of any animals, especially my animals, being neglected in any way. Sign me up.

While MD did get a respectable 6”, my little corner of WV got nearly 10”! It is extremely cold and extremely beautiful, and I have spent today feeding and hydrating the goats, cats, birds, and any other little being that I hope to be serving with the vast amounts of seed and water I’m keeping stocked outside. ONE goat has deigned to wear its coat (Rambo, duh), the cats will only come inside for periodic warmings that I think are more about accommodating my maternal worry than their discomfort, and you can see none of the paths I shoveled on my first voyage to the barn. Hey, we still have power (miracle), and I have detailed the stovetop and painted a bathroom and taken many a photo, and the migraine I’ve had since late December is gone. And now it looks like I’ll be here at least until Tuesday. You don’t hear me complaining.

Why are there so many pejorative names for women who aren’t nubile and agreeable? I mean, I offered you but a sample above. And like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

If the (vastly understaffed because they’ve all been fired by trump) weather service is correct, tomorrow is to be sunny and at least ten degrees warmer than today. This will put the temp at roughly 25 F. I’m not complaining, but I’m also not expecting much in the way of melt. Considering that I did not see or hear even a single plow today, I think I best settle in. For pete’s sakes, I can’t even drive five feet in my driveway which is about a half-mile long, so… But yay for sun! And a proper winter. I pulled a massive dog tick off Jinx tonight, but hopefully the other ticks are all freezing to death in the snow and hopefully all the plants are having a proper lie in and remembering the concept of seasons, and hopefully everyone can just take a minute to calm down and think.

With humility, may I suggest we think about courage and moral integrity and the profound power that can be felt and asserted by saying “NO! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!”

I am about to start a new needlework class entitled Emerald Counted Threads, aka Blackwork in needle-speak. In preparation, I brought all my supplies to WV and today enjoyed reacquainting myself with variously sized needles, beeswax, hoops and threads, and the somewhat blinding creative optionality that can be found in so many places. I was awestruck by this bit of ice on a window, for example, but had no luck tracing it (the light) or reimagining it with paper and pencil (too intricate), so gave up and started something with pearled purl and jewel-toned bullion for Valentine’s Day. And to have a whole table full of material and a day of time and a room of glass which means light and so much beauty all around, well I felt rich.

Honestly, I also felt full of rage and deliciously entitled to and empowered by that rage. Were not two innocents just slaughtered in Minneapolis? Were not their killers simply supported with money (you fucker, Bill Ackman, I see you and your BS) and reassignments (no punishment, of course, gasp, what a concept, it’s like Catholic priest pedophiles) rather than punished and shamed as they deserve? Renee Good, a mother and school volunteer. Alex Pretti, a nurse for veterans. Both simply bearing witness to the horrors their community is enduring, both simply showing up, both killed for their goodness.

Y’all, if I find total peace in my counted threads class tomorrow, I will let you know. Could it be so simple? Yes and no.

Because you know what? No one should feel peace right now but for the intermittent kind that we all need to discover and hold onto to stay sane. If you support Donald Trump, you hate America. If you support the GOP, you are evil. If you voted for trump, you have blood on your hands. You should be shamed and tarnished and kicked out of decent society. You can hide behind your “Christian” values or your “safety” bullshit. But Jesus would weep at the sight of your cruelty and the most dangerous among us are white men who peaked in high school and have now joined ICE to feel tough and to vindicate their pathetic existences.

If my words make you uncomfortable, perhaps you’re starting to think of me as an overwrought libtard. A hysterical progressive. A deluded wine mom. If so, I am A-OK with that. YOU are on the wrong side of history, of morality, of justice, of democracy, of what our founders envisioned, and most certainly of Jesus. Fuck, I’m an atheist and I’m a better Christian than every Republican I know.

Consider the words that have historically been used to tar and feather women who were sick of towing the party line. Who wanted to live rather than be controlled. Who wanted to think for themselves rather than having their dear husbands/parents/churches/whatever do that “work” for them. Who would not, and will never, sit by while innocent men and women are being murdered for simply saying “wait a minute; I see your misbehavior and I don’t agree.” You start to wonder about the why behind the monikers, you know?

I will turn 50 in a few months. I’m nearing peak “crone” age. And I am reveling in it because I am no longer willing to sit down, stay mum, keep polite, and remain palatable. Some of you, some of my very family, are wrong. You are deplorable and you are ripping our country apart.

Spinster. Crone. Witch. Old Maid. Hysterical. Past Her Prime. Shrew. Hag. Harpy. Harridan. Fucking Bitch. In those denigrations is such power and liberation. Can you hear my witchy cackle as I raise my hands and heart to the skies?

Damnit, and next

I spent Thursday morning and five hours yesterday going from Capitol to Senate to Supreme Court. I took the tunnel from Dirksen to Russell twice and was even admonished for inadvertently finding my way to the Senate subway in some subterranean space. With two friends, I visited the offices of Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Collins, Corker, Murkowski, Flake, Manchin, Cruz, and more. I wrote notes to almost all of them, left a not-in-your-fan club note in Cruz’s guest book, and spoke my mind politely but very firmly in front of a crowd in Manchin’s office. I was interviewed by NPR, Splinter, and Arizona PBS, and the only reason I share any of this is because none of it seems to have mattered. But I still think it does.

For way too long, I and so many of us have taken democracy for granted. It’s what America is, right? No. It’s what America can be if enough of us fight for that. Right now, we’re fast luges on an icy decline to an authoritarian state run by white Christian men (and not a few women) of the GOP. That would NEVER be a country that represents me or my husband or my children or most people I know and love. And, as such, it is unjust and intolerable to me.

Yesterday at the Senate, I heard a rape victim share her story as well as the fact that in doing so earlier that morning, she had been laughed at -laughed at to her face!- by a group wearing Women For Kavanaugh and I’m With Brett shirts. The cruelty in that renders me speechless. I am still speechless.

And today, when I listened to the roll call of senators casting votes for Kavanaugh, I wasn’t surprised but I was crushed.

I know that so many of us feel hopeless. That we should just give up. But to do so is to abdicate our democratic duties. To do so is to prove the naysayers’ point that democracy is but an idealistic figment, a farce.

If all I witnessed yesterday and Thursday and last week and all the days I’ve protested and marched and rallied and called and canvassed is any indication, democracy is tenuous but worth desperately fighting for. There are so many of us out there demanding change. What needs to happen now is that ALL OF US VOTE. Change can happen only if we storm the voting booths and make our voices heard.

Yes to every doubt you’ll likely raise: gerrymandering, voter suppression, cheating, PACs and other dark money, toxic everything, politicians who only care about their own positions of power.

But also: the rising tide of furious women who will not go back to anything except what we choose to; folks like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams and Jacky Rosen and Jahana Hayes; the people who have already done what everyone said they couldn’t (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example); the people who will (whoever runs against Susan fucking Collins).

We saw in the Senate signs I never thought I’d see (see photos) and met so many staffers who thanked us and thanked us some more for being there. One of my dear friends flew in on the red eye from Portland so she could protest all day Friday. Another dear friend essentially moved onto the Capitol steps last week and may finally return home tonight.

All of us, regardless of what side you’re on, deserve better than what we’re getting. We deserve better than mealy-mouthed cowards (like Jeff Flake whose office door we found locked on Friday) and Lisa Murkowski who talked a big game but pulled her vote today because “Gaines would vote Aye if he were here so our votes would cancel each others out anyway.” We deserve better than old pissy white men like Grassley, Hatch, and Graham, who never bothered to take Dr. Ford or the FBI “investigation” remotely seriously but instead impeded both at every turn and in every way. We deserve better than the two-bit cheating imbecile who is our “president.” And we certainly deserve better than the angry liar who was just given what is arguably the largest honor with the greatest amount of sway in our country: a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

We have FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS until the midterms. How will you spend your time?

If you care at all about our democracy, you will do everything in your power to register and get people to vote. You will make calls, write postcards, knock on doors, and donate what you can. You will talk to neighbors and friends and people in the carpool lines and you will politely beg them to vote. If you’re uncomfortable, do it anyway, or do it quietly or with your checkbook. If you have daughters, do it so they won’t have to be assaulted and then disbelieved. If you have sons, do it because you want to raise men who would NEVER treat women as sub-human toys. If you’re an adult, question the ways you were socialized as children. If you have any hesitation, consider the rest of your life being run by people like these:

H/t Daily Kos

Change the narrative, y’all. Demand better. Demand different. Demand more. If you’re angry, stay angry. There’s a fuckload to be angry about, and as so many people have correctly noted, from righteous anger can come enormous growth and change.

We have four and a half weeks. Focus. If the Democrats don’t gain back at least the House, I think America buys itself a second Trump term. I do not think we can afford that in any way. Everything you feel now? Use it.

Resources:

Votesforwomen.co

Sisterdistrict.com

Host a Flip the House postcard-writing party: Flip the House

Swing Left

Some great candidates to support:

Beto O’Rourke (TX/Sen)

Kyrsten Sinema (AZ/Sen)

Jacky Rosen (NV/Sen)

Joe Donnelly (IN/Sen)

Heidi Heitkamp (ND/Sen)

Bill Nelson (FL/Sen)

Andrew Gillum (FL/gov)

Stacey Abrams (GA/gov)

Sean Casten (IL-6/House)

Mike Levin (CA-49/House)

Jahana Hayes (CT-5/House)

Let me know of folks you support, too!