Friday, May 30, 2014

Matriarchal Tyranny

(30 minutes to write)

Because I'm still working too many hours I've been getting up in the dark to write before the kids wake up. All this ensures is that the kids will wake up in the dark as well, as they have just now. If I sleep in I have to wake them from heavy slumbers, they resent me for it, but if I get up early and turn on the burner where the espresso pot waits ready before the sky is pink and purple, it's a fairy tale kiss to them. Our house is small, so I'm sent back into the bedroom where Noah now sleeps next to me and I am still not really alone. I am tempted to lock myself in a bathroom, a nice dark bathroom, cut off from everyone's energy, which I absorb until there's no room for my own, and the sound of their breath. Doesn't that sound lovely, dearie?

Please bear with me during this Writing In The Time of Real Jobs when my sentences are jumbled and only borderline coherent. That's just the state of my brian. My brain.

The #yesallwomen thing that happened on twitter was cathartic for me, and despite how cynical we can be about social media activism, this one did seem to raise the social consciousness a degree, at the very least cluing in a few clueless men. #NOTALLMEN are clueless as I now know I must say, as any conversation about women must ultimately reassure the men. Now the only thing getting in the way of a Total Matriarchal Regime is the Dalai Llama, who keeps tweeting at me to be compassionate.

I only encounter #notallmen while at the library, where they feel entitled to take up my emotional resources and time. Then the Dalai Llama says I should be more compassionate, you know Jesus used to mention that too, over drinks, and I ponder what it would be like to give these men what they want, my compassionate attention. Any woman knows this would be risky behavior as it would encourage these #notallmen and could lead to them feeling I owe them a thing or two, and we all know where that could lead, I don't have to spell it out, right? So here in my bedroom while the sky is pink and purple, it occurs to me that #yesallprophets have been male and they risk nothing by being compassionate. Maybe you're thinking about Mother Teresa, but she was older and thus unsexed. What we need is a Female Messiah. I have a feeling She would spend a lot less time telling me to be nice, since as a woman I am already so conditioned into niceties that I feel bad for being less than pleasant to #notallmen who are calling me baby babe and commenting on my appearance while I check out to them their Tom Clancy and David Baldacci.

Listen we adopted this little butterscotch kitten. We were throwing around names on the drive home, and as we pulled into our driveway we noticed an excess of cars in the ministers' driveway. "Bob City," Noah said. "Bob City," I said. "Let's name him Bob City." The girls were furious at this development and told me so, saying my name too long, stretching it out. "No, BIBLE STUDY," Noah repeated, but it was too late. We might have accidentally named our cat Bob City because Noah and I called it that repeatedly in order to torture our children, and it now feels weird to call it anything else.

Time's up.


  1. Absorbing other people's energy till there's no room for your own? God, do I know what you mean. This? It's prophetic and wonderful and true.

  2. Your energy -- however procured -- inspires me.

  3. Hell. I don't know shit but I do know that getting older creates a sort of barrier to everything which is odd and sad and wonderful and horrible. It gives you room to observe and think.

    Our orange cat, which we have adopted, was named immediately by me as Maurice. Mr. Moon keeps insisting that she needs a girl name. I've tried but Maurice seems to be her name.
    We had a cat named Bob once who was our most famous and personable cat. God, he was a bitchy boy but we loved him. So...Bob City. Yeah.


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