Morning Irritation

I was reading this piece in Current Affairs about Jordan Peterson (who sounds like a right git, really) and sheer irritation managed to roll me out of bed. Not so much at Peterson–I was married to a man whose verbosity others mistook for a higher grade of genius than the one he possessed for multiple years, and was mostly amused by the experience.1

What irritated me was this assertion:

Another part of it, though, is that academics have been cloistered and unhelpful, and the left has failed to offer people a coherent political alternative. (Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs)

Academics have not been cloistered and unhelpful, they’ve been systematically robbed of a reasonable living and saddled with make-work instead of being paid decently to teach. The “left” does have a coherent political alternative, it’s called don’t be a dick, and its simplicity is only part of the reason why plenty of asshats nitpick with it or shut their eyes and scream “la la la la, I can’t hear you!” Plenty of people want to be dicks, plenty of corporations want academics so busy trying to pay rent and feed themselves that they can’t fulfill their actual function, and pretending otherwise on either count makes you part of the problem.

Bloviating proto-fascists like Peterson are chump-change a dozen; they come in and out of fashion like the tide. I’m not even mad about it anymore, I just roll my eyes when yet another misogynist, racist, verbose jackass starts gathering converts who really just want an excuse to piñata-pin their insecurities on someone else and pick up a stick. I am irritated with the assertion that “the left” doesn’t have a coherent alternative. We do, it’s just that “don’t be a dick, for God’s sake” isn’t something the vast majority of selfish “conservatives” want to hear.

TL;DR: Peterson is yet another asshat on the self-help gravy train, and “don’t be a dick” is actually a coherent political platform.

Stacked-Counter Disaster

Well. Last week ended without me having developed pyrokinesis and burning everything in sight, so that’s good, right? Between doctor’s appointments1 and loved ones having difficulties and the ongoing dishwasher saga (still not installed, don’t ask, maybe Tuesday will change all that) and being behind on this monster of an epic fantasy (that they’re going to title something WRONG IMO but oh well, they know what they’re doing) and the Princess needing an emergency trip or two and the Little Prince needing some tough love when it comes to his homework AND the dogs AND AND AND…

…you get the idea. Every once in a while a week comes along where the universe, not content to load one up with a single disaster, crams ever more into a short timeframe and lights a match, smirking.

Consequently, I took yesterday off except for Regular Sunday Chores, but I’m still twitching. Normally I have the luxury of feeding my introvert nature, spending great chunks of each day alone.2 I also–because clearly I don’t have enough to do–broke down, got a domain, and put together the bare bones of a fan wiki.3 That part was fun; the problem with every other wiki or bulletin board install I’ve done in the past is trying to run it off my main site instead of just getting a domain and putting it there, which cratered EVERYTHING. I did it in fifteen-minute chunks in between washing up, hoovering, brushing and bathing the canids, and assorted other household maintenance items.

Consequently, today I’m kind of…staring and twitching, again. I have a chapter of Atlanta Bound to revise and wordcount on said giant epic fantasy to catch up on, a long run to get in, and all I want to do is go back to bed. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for emotional energy is beginning to feel hideously familiar, even though I’ve telescoped in a lot of other commitments. The only cure is getting some things off my plate, and that won’t happen without work.

It would also be nice to have the kitchen put back together. Everything in the cabinets that the installers will need taken out in order to do their job easily has been living on the counters for…a while, now. I would never have thought such a thing would irk me–one of the accusations leveled at me since childhood is that I’m a messy person and mess obviously doesn’t bother me the way it should. I could find anything on my bookshelf or in my room in seconds flat and never lost my school papers, though, so I guess I wasn’t so much messy as it was a convenient thing to yell at me about. When the kids came along, a certain amount of mess didn’t bother me because Tiny Chaos Machines are gonna Tiny Chaos Machine, and there’s nothing to be done about it. I am…surprised, and a little baffled, that the kitchen being a stacked-counter disaster bothers me as much as it does. I mean, the house is crammed with books and dust and fun things, but I want to put the goddamn waffle iron back in its home.

Go figure.

This is turning out to be yet another year of things I didn’t question about myself because I was told them over and over by toxic caregivers proving to be not quite true. It’s unsettling, but also pleasant. Maybe that’s also costing emotional energy.

Meh. Time to get back to work. The morning run won’t accomplish itself–more’s the pity–and neither will the bloody books.

Over and out.

Cloaked

Miss B is beside herself, since I’m in running clothes and she suspects, hopes, dares to believe I’ll be taking her with me. I will, but not until my coffee settles. It’s a goddamn Monday, and I need caffeine.

There’s a thing going around on Twitter–“describe yourself the way a male author would.” I’ll bypass the explanation of how we got there–it’s here if you want it–and also bypass a description of the most hilarious responses.

My own description? “Invisible.”

As soon as I typed it, I began thinking. Yeah, I’m over 40, and I’m carrying weight despite the running. I am by and large invisible to men now, except for when they want to cut in line and I hiss you know better like a venomous creature with exhausted patience. I’ve survived longer than I ever thought possible, which is part of why I have no plans for retirement.1 Food is a friend that does not judge, and I ate in self-defense for a long, long time. I hated–and still hate–predatory stares, men throwing things out their car windows at me whenever I lost a few pounds, the interruptions while reading or even just minding my own damn business on public transit, the need to be constantly alert because some asshole will assume I exist just to listen to his patter.

I am no longer a frightened child hoping my abuser won’t slither into my bedroom at night, no longer a teenager desperate for any affection at all, no longer a young woman struggling to keep her head above water. I’m past the sell-by date put on female beauty, and each line on my face is a lesson I’ve worked for. Now, instead of eating to pad myself against voracious male gazes, I’m actually losing that protective cushion. There’s a freedom to being a bitchy older broad, a release from the hunter’s gaze, that means I no longer need to keep a weapon within arm’s reach.

Of course, I still do. Relaxation is one thing, foolishness is quite another.

My cloak of invisibility is purely and simply age. Experience. Patriarchy’s toxic insistence that I only have value when I’m attractive to men, too young to fight back, and not possessed of the life experience to know better is exploded daily by the fact that I give zero fucks anymore and I am finally largely free of the roving eyes and catcalls.

I know I’m not safer, of course. I represent a bigger threat to patriarchy than ever, and my lack of perceived attractiveness won’t save me if a male decides he has to reinforce his fragile sense of self-worth with violence against any available female body. The danger isn’t gone, it’s just shifted.

Still…it’s good to heave a sigh of relief and know there’s a smaller chance of being accosted at the grocer’s, a smaller chance of beverage cans flying from car windows while I’m running, a smaller chance of some random guy thinking I want to date him because I’ve been polite, a smaller chance of stalkers fixating on me.

It’s nice to feel free, and I suspect the freedom will only intensify as I age further into invisibility. At the same time, there’s a ramp-up of my privilege–older white women may be invisible when it comes to catcalling, but we can shield others, deploying that cloak of unfuckability and perceived respectability (there’s a song chorus in that phrase, I can sense it) to cover those who protest to provide them with some safety as well as deploy said respectability as a megaphone, boosting those who have a hard time being heard.

If there’s a gift in my survival, it lies there. And also in the liberating feeling of being invisible enough to live my life largely unaccosted.

I can’t wait to get started on that.

Caesar, Sibilant

More Latin. During the day it’s Caesar’s Gallic War, when I go to bed it’s at least one page of Pliny. Right now, the Belgae are besieging Bibrax, and one of the things I like about reading aloud from a Loeb Classical edition is sometimes I hear a fellow writer using words for effect. Case in point:

Cum finem oppugnandi nox fecisset, Iccius Remus, summa nobilitate et gratia inter suos, qui tum oppido praefuerat, unus ex eis qui legati de pace ad Caesarem venerant, nuntium ad eum mittit, nisi subsidium sibi submittatur, sese diutius sustinere non posse. The Gallic War, Loeb Classical, p.98

By the time we get to “subsidium” Caesar’s having a bit of fun, and throws the alliterative sibilants down with what I imagine is a languorous dinner-party wave of one manicured (but manly!) hand. The entire page is really a joy, especially once one catches the rhythm. Sentence by sentence, one gets a sense of a man who liked writing almost as much as he liked winning battles.

Lemon Glaze

I did not want to get out of bed today. I mean, I don’t ever want to, but this morning’s wanting was in a class all its own. Fortunately there was lemon poundcake left over from yesterday, which was even better today. Maybe it’s the sort of thing one has to make the day before, stick in the fridge, and try not to eat until the next morning.

The best thing about said cake was the glaze–sugar dissolved and heated in fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon juice, then poured over the hot and toothpick-jabbed poundcake, wait ten minutes, brush remainder of glaze over poundcake surface, let cool. The recipe said to take it out of the pan and brush it all over with the glaze, but I decided “fuck that” for two reasons: one, a tide of lemon syrup all over my counter is just asking for trouble, and two, I doubled the poundcake recipe to make a 13×9.

Because when I poundcake, dammit, I GO FOR GOLD.

Anyway, I can only guess that the glaze soaking in overnight, nestling in nooks and crannies, made for super deliciousness the next morning. For those interested, the recipe’s from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible–the basic poundcake recipe, lemon-poppyseed variation, only without the poppy seeds because I hate the little buggers between my teeth.

So, leftover poundcake with eight shots of espresso, I have a run to get in, and three projects on the burners now. Atlanta Bound is heating up; I have all the pieces in place for the season (and Roadtrip Z series) finale. I’m still going gonzo on Hostage of Zhaon–the first half of it is with a sensitivity reader now, so I should hear back soon whether there are giant fucking holes or the whole thing is just a bad idea. If it’s the former it’s probably fixable, but if it’s the latter, well, that’s 60K down the drain. Better that than being an asshole, though.

I’ve also been playing around with Hell’s Acre. I like both the characters, but I think the last scene I wrote needs to have its setting changed out in order to set up Breakbridge the Orphanage Director. Who is a very decent fellow doing his best.

No, I didn’t want to get out of bed today. Since I’m here and caffeinated, though, I might as well work. Miss B is pointed down the hallway, twitching every time I shift in my chair. She knows I have my running togs on, and that means motion.

Over and out.

Of Course, At Least

Of course Miss B had to wriggle and push until I was out of bed, despite a very interesting dream I kept longing to go back to involving a spy, a giant old refinished Victorian house, and microfiche. Of course Odd Trundles, bumbling around under the dining table, scared himself with a high-pitched noise from his own nether end and knocked over two chairs, wrenching the table almost sideways and almost, almost knocking a hapless African violet off said table. (It lost a leaf and keeps whispering about earthquakes.)

Of course the Mad Tortie had to try leaping into my lap while I was drinking coffee. She’s fine and the cup didn’t break, but I had to make another four shots because the first four hit the floor. And, and, of course, of course the damn squirrels have found the bird feeders and are gorging themselves.

Of course.

I’ve a middling-long run this morning, which means B will not be accompanying me. She will be quite put out by this, but she’s no longer the sprightly pup she used to be. Rest will do her good, and she can go with me tomorrow. Of course she won’t understand, and will supervise me extra hard upon my return.

At least I got some seeds into a mini-greenhouse, protected from squirrel depredations. I’ll be able to plant the starts when they come up and have a chance of them surviving, if the slugs aren’t too bad this year. I also got another hellebore into the ground, a beautiful deep-flowered one. The milky daffodils are coming up and I see evidence of hyacinths, the hop vine survived the winter and is by all appearances ready to make this the year it grows up the stair-rails with a vengeance.

And at least, if I don’t take B today, all the asshats who let their dogs offleash will only be moderately annoying. Small mercies.

I have hung a cheap bird feeder outside the kitchen window. On tiptoe, getting the hook into the holder, I heard the Princess laughing on the deck behind me. “What?” I tried not to sound aggrieved.

“I’m just thinking,” she said, “that maybe we’ll have more raining squirrels.”

I’m under strict orders to keep her posted.

Over and out.

Prepared

Snowing hard this morning. The Prince went off to school with his Yule gloves, the scarf I knitted him, his down jacket–I could barely see his eyes peering out between scarf and hood. “I’m PREPARED,” he announced, before clattering out the door.

Odd Trundles moaned, groaned, and otherwise bitched until I dragged him (and B) out for a walk. And, again, he shook his delicate paws all the way and moaned at me. Clearly, as the goddess of everything as far as his wee canine self is concerned, I deliberately made it snow in order to inconvenience him and soak his nails. B, of course, was THRILLED with the falling white stuff and singing hosannas of praise, since clearly as the goddess of everything as far as her wee canine self is concerned, I deliberately made it snow to give her something to sniff at and play in.

It’s rough being a goddess.

I dreamed last night that I was twelve, Fezzik (Andre the Giant, natch) was my foster father, and I found out I could call shoggoths from the sea and obliterate the evil people using said shoggoths for their own nefarious purposes. Woke up wondering if the shoggoths would get indigestion from evil people, then fell back asleep and dreamed they carried me away to a city just thrust up from under the waves, and my biggest worry was convincing the big gelatinous blobs to bring me fruit or flotsam involving preserved limes so I didn’t get scurvy. Apparently reading all that Lovecraft did something to my subconscious, but on time-delay.

I finished Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives yesterday while waiting to pick up the Princess at the train station (thank goodness she was safely home before this weather moved in) and was furious at the betrayal of Cesárea and of Lupe. I shouldn’t be surprised; machismo authors transacting through the bodies of woman (oh, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick made it articulate for me) is nothing new at all. Still, there are some parts of that book–like Quim’s long discussion of the literature of desperation–that have burrowed in and will stay with me for a while.

*time passes*

I must look like death warmed over, because when the neighbor texted to ask if I wanted anything from the store and I went over to drop off some cash, said neighbor opened the door and said, “Silly girl…are you still sick?” Thankfully I did NOT breathe on/infect my neighbors. Normally I would have scolded them for thinking of traveling in this weather, since I’ve got the all-wheel drive, but the roads are pretty clear and I’m in no condition to go anywhere. I’ll be huddling next to the heater for a while.

I had somewhere I was going with this post, but it’s flown right out the window. Time to put some laundry in and take some decongestants.

*wanders away*