I probably won’t be back here, writing, in

I probably won’t be back here, writing, in any substantial way until the end of the summer — just enough time, I hope, to allow all but the four of you I actually want to be conversing with to forget all about this place. 

In the meantime, though, I want to remember fucking the lean, muscular, blue-eyed man I fuck a few times a week last night–fantastic, engaged, really passionate sex, some of the best we’ve had together–and after, while he was sleeping, I lit a candle and put on a Serge Gainsbourg record and smoked a cigarette, a filthy habit I indulge maybe twice a year. Supine on the mussed sheets, my fingers finding trails through the thick hair on his chest, pulling on the cigarette and then depositing it back in its ashtray, a vivid moment of absolute satiation. Glorious. 

I have been in a very good mood lately. 

SHE IS RISEN

This has been a really sad week.

I cannot believe he’s gone.

A tremendously strange weekend. The dance party on Friday was also the first real spring day. I wore a dress and immediately felt twenty times more vibrant and alive since I’ve been ill. I danced and drank and felt whirly and joyful. I kissed two people, gave my phone number to one and went home with another (though, midway through, I decided I was bored and got up and dressed and left. That is totally rude but I doubt that guy gave a single fuck.) UNFORTUNATELY, that guy lives across the street from me. LITERALLY. So um. I’ll have to start re-thinking running around the neighborhood all Britney Spears style with my unleashed pups and my hair all dirty and messily pulled back, rocking ridiculous pajamas. I am no longer invisible in my little world. Yesterday was recovering and cleaning; today was hard. I was back at my thesis, but also and mostly in a Steubenville hole. I got, I now realize, pretty triggered about my own rape. Which it’s taken me 15 years to be completely open and honest about. So yeah, I’m not over it and I still get triggered sometimes. And today was one of those days. Strangely, my voice is gone. As if I’ve been screaming my frustration — which I have been doing on the social networks all day — though I actually haven’t uttered a word to a single soul all day. And then to distract myself I watched How to Survive a Plague, a gorgeous documentary about the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s. And know that I was fully immersed in that zeitgeist, but have no real clear recollection of it.
I recalled that my mother’s best friend from high school died of AIDS, but that she’d only mentioned him twice in my whole life and I knew nothing about him beyond his name. I called her and we talked about him. And also, in a quiet, ancillary way, about her. His story was awful. And the way she described growing up with him and loving and admiring his vibrancy, and then watching him die, sounded like it was just harrowing. But what really struck me was that ancillary thing–the still completely evident self-loathing she felt. Referring to herself as fat and incompetent and having a gross mullet and smoking and having no friends. I kept murmuring, I just hate that you ever thought about yourself that way, mom, and I really meant it. She told me she kept herself away from him until she felt her life was on track and she could be proud of who she was, but by the time she made it back to him he was in his death throes and did not really recognize her.
And here’s the strangest thing. She kept telling me that she can’t talk about her friend without crying and she rarely does. I finally asked her, why did you agree to talk to me about him? And she told me, because I’ve made a promise to myself to be completely honest with you. And because I trust you. And I realized that I think my mom is really trying to help me fill in whatever blanks I need to help me piece my childhood and adolescence back together into some manageable, understandable narrative. That she wants to be a part of my life. And that she wants me to trust her.

A lot of heavy lifting today. Not as much work as I would have liked. But this is the day I had. Tomorrow will be different.

At least I’m still in love with Yorick’s skull.

Took a mental health day (ON MONDAY, OH MY GOD) and have been in bed watching movies because I just cannot locate the will to write my thesis anymore. Side note: Mermaids is incredible and Reality Bites is terrible. Looking at it makes me physically nauseous. I keep thinking if I can just generate 3-4 good pages today, I will not feel like such a waste of space. And yet the pages do not appear, because I can’t stand the metaphorical sound of my own voice anymore. Do I know how to write? Did I ever? 

C laughs at me and says Go out and tie one on, you’re too far inside your head except that’ll put me at a deficit for the whole week and I’ll feel enormously guilty for having gotten drunk before I did the week’s work, so that’s just out. I have lost the will to do any of this anymore. This mental health day is feeling more and more like a strike and less and less like a break. 

This Didion quote has been jangling around in my head for weeks: It is possible to stay too long at the fair. 

Can’t talk, listening to this song on repeat and writing my thesis

 

This is the email I just wrote to Jezebel’s tip email account. I am going to try to sell this story to national news outlets, see if anyone will pick it up. Maybe if we can drum up some national outcry, we can push back at today’s legislative shitshow. If you know any journalists/columnists/stringers for news outlets, will you backchannel me please? We need to take action. 

 

HI JEZEBEL!

I’m writing you because I’m hoping to get some national coverage for
some unbelievable atrocities that happened in the state house today.

FIRST, Representative Mary Sue McClurkin (R-Indian Springs) sponsored
a bill charmingly named the “Women’s Health and Safety Act” which
requires abortion providers in the state to have the same fire and
safety codes as ambulatory medical facilities (read: hospitals) and a
physician with admitting privileges at a hospital in-county on staff
at all times. It also has fun little amendments like: requiring the
clinic to report any abortion recipient under the age of 14 to the
department of Human Resources and to report the names of the father
and the abortion recipient to Human Resources AND law enforcement for
women under the age of 16 seeking abortion. It also prevents the
prescription of chemical abortion pills without consultation and
counseling, meaning a doctor’s visit, which many of the impoverished
women of this INCREDIBLY impoverished state cannot afford, especially
not without the option of Planned Parenthood. The language also
changes to refer to abortion as a surgical procedure that “involves
the taking of a human life” — so here come the Roe v. Wade
challenges.

A bill similar to this–called TRAP–passed in Mississippi last year
and resulted in the closure of ALL BUT ONE women’s health clinic.
Doctor’s applied to and were denied admitting privileges at 7
different hospitals so clinics could not stay open.

Alabama currently has FIVE women’s health clinics that provide
abortions (in addition to other services, such as cancer screenings
and dispensation of affordable birth control. FIVE. For a state with
4.8million residents, 51.5% of whom are female. FIVE.

When concern was raised that the possible closure of these clinics
would restrict women’s access to cancer screenings and birth control,
McClurkin said she was “not sure what services the clinics provided
outside of abortions.” Representative Terri Collins (R-Decatur) was
quoted as saying, “I think that it will truly limit abortions that are
done in Alabama, and I’m pleased with that”.

Here is a source to get you started:

(http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/02/alabama_house_of_representativ.html)

For what it’s worth, my own congressman, Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa),
debated fiercely against the bill along with Rep. Patricia Todd
(D-Birmingham), asking McClurkin point-blank if she would feel
comfortable if all access to abortion was restricted in the state. She
sidestepped the question.

THEN I TOOK MY PUPPY TO OBEDIENCE CLASS, AND WHILE I WAS GONE, FOR
*ONE HOUR*, THIS LITTLE AWESOME PIECE OF LEGISLATION PASSED:

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/02/house_passes_contraception_exe.html#incart_river_default

This prevents certain “religiously-affiliated employers” from having
to provide insurance coverage for birth control under Obama’s
Affordable Health Care Act. The terms of “religiously-affiliated” are
broad enough to encompass basically any employer who doesn’t feel like
covering birth control. But that’s fine, right? Because if your
insurance doesn’t cover birth control you can always just go to your
local–OH WAIT–THEY SHUT ALL THE PLANNED PARENTHOODS DOWN.

These bills now pass to the State Senate house, which ALSO has a
Republican super majority and has similar bills in committee, ready to
go to the floor for a vote.

Basically, the women of Alabama are COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FUCKED.

This may also be of use to you: a woman in Montgomery (state capitol)
has compiled local news stories of women being harassed and assaulted
on their way into abortion clinics, statewide, and a more thorough and
detailed description of the steps local advocates have taken to try to
slow this HORRORTRAIN down, even a little.

I am just about at my wits end here.

Maybe if this story got some national coverage, we could push back at
the lawmakers? What do you think, Jezebel–is this a story worth
covering?

Please get in touch with me if you have ANY questions. I’m hardly an
expert, but I’m a woman in Alabama who likes to have sex and a rabid
protector of choice. My phone number is [redacted] and this is my
primary email.

Thanks for reading, y’all.