Dear Shangning:

"Dear Rufus, ... Today a kitten called Jenson was returned to us because of his biting... I wished I could just talk to you to ask you what you were feeling when you bit someone... What were you trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

My Dearest Shangning:

You asked about a biting cat. I can answer, but I'm afraid I can't answer directly without first sharing a lot of things that will seem very disconnected. Or they will seem very connected, depending on your perspective.

*

First: not a lot of people know, but I'm divorced. I got married at 19. I thought I was too young, but he wanted to be married, and I thought I'd better go ahead, otherwise he'll dump me.

I wasn't ready. I hadn't finished becoming myself yet. I learned things about myself that were incompatible with what he wanted in a partner. He also lied to himself about who I had been all along. 

Obviously it didn't work out. I wanted to stay together and try to grow back together but his father insisted he divorce me.

*

When I adopted Rufus from The Cats' Cradle, you told me he'd been returned twice already. You also gave me an information sheet about his vaccination history. It said when he arrived on the 13th of April, 2019, the vet estimated that he was 1 year and 11 months old. How old is that in people years? Was he 19 yet? Had he finished becoming himself? Did he learn things about himself that surprised him, or pushed others away?

*

There's this surge of a theme online recently, an attitude for (usually) women who've been treated badly by (usually) men who can't handle them. There are tons of platitudinous quote images to be found if you google "you are not too much." They look like this:

*

My second long-term partner came to me in my mid to late twenties. We had two amazing years together before he went to war in Afghanistan. When he came back, things were much more difficult. I didn't understand what had changed or why, but he no longer seemed to be interested in me. I no longer felt wanted or desired so much as just kept around, and quite often I felt he found me annoying. I spent two more years trying to save things before one night I realized I was planning suicide and stopped myself. I put myself and my dog into my car and drove two days across the US until I arrived at my father's house. I arrived around midnight, crying at his back door, saying, "Can I stay here for a while?"

*

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the first time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle. 

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the second time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle.

*

*

I have so very many flaws. I try to work on them, even though I know I will go to my grave before I finish fixing them all. But I've made a lot of progress on my anger. Once when I was younger, I got so angry I blacked out. When I came to, my mother had been punched in the head and my hand hurt. In my defense, she'd been abusing me for over a decade at the time. I had to run away from home I was so afraid of what she'd do. When I got in touch with my sister, she told me that my mother was in my bedroom, putting my belongings into bags to donate to charities.

I know what it's like to have to heal from trauma. I know what it's like to never be completely healed. I know what it's like to have so many strong feelings that you can't stop yourself from hurting someone. I know what it's like when someone whose love you desperately need instead decides they don't want you anymore.

*

The ex-partner who went to Afghanistan is married now. I found photos online of him and his new wife, whose name is Fawn because of course it is, and they ride horses together, because of course she's into horses, across beaches in low tide and they splash in the surf and laugh at their reflections.

I guess he found his forever home.

*

My ex-husband also married his next serious partner after me. They have so many daughters at this point I've lost count whether it's four or five. She's a child psychologist, I think, or maybe psychiatrist, or counselor. Something like that. Right before he left me he told me a terrible story about childhood abuse he'd been through.

I've also lost count of how many of my exes married their next serious partner after me. Where is my forever home?

*

*

In March of 2020, I left my partner of nearly five years in Korea to move back to Taiwan. It was a happy relationship, but I was unhappy in Korea and was once again fighting suicidal ideation. I had to go back to the last place my heart remembered being happy. Corona was just becoming big news at the time. The borders of Taiwan closed four days after I arrived. In June or July I asked him to marry me, and he said yes. But by August he dumped me.

We were friends for a year and a half before we ever considered dating. He knew exactly who I was during all that time. But I think he started lying to himself about who I was when we got together. Because something that has always been a part of who I am, something he always knew about, came up, and suddenly he declared it a deal breaker.

*

When I adopted Rufus, you told me the story of his rescue. You told me he had loved the smell of a steak restaurant so much that he actually got his head stuck inside a hole in the roof and you had to go and get him out of it.

I can easily understand what it feels like to love something so much you hurt yourself trying to get to it. I wanted to stay with my ex-husband until his father pushed for the divorce. I tried to fix the relationship with the veteran who wouldn't acknowledge PTSD for two years. I think my last partner knew he would eventually dump me when I first left Korea. But I still proposed to him.

When I pictured the story you were telling me, it wasn't Rufus's head I saw stuck in that ceiling. It was my own.

*

Sometimes when I'm angry I lash out. Sometimes when I haven't slept enough, I get cranky. Also, I'm a poet, a chef, and a teacher. I'm a good listener and a caring friend. Honestly overall I'm a great person 99% of the time. But who among us is perfect? Do you know anyone without flaws?

*

Rufus teaches me many things, but most of all he teaches me mindfulness. I suspect I still have some of the ADHD I was diagnosed with in my adolescence because I've never been successful at meditating, despite trying for years. I simply cannot quiet my thoughts for any length of time, and I mean, I truly have tried it so many different ways with different teachers and texts and all sorts of approaches.

Rufus comes to me and he makes this silent, breathy, squeaky meow. And I realize I have my face in my phone and I'm not doing anything important at all. Literally nothing in any of the different apps I'm switching between has any great meaning or will accomplish anything helpful in the long run. So I put it down.

I get down on his level and I start speaking to him. He meows back in that strange, almost-silent way. And he will take as much attention as I want to give him for as long as I will stay focused on him. He never runs off. He stays right there, meowing at me for more.

I know what it feels like to need more.

*

Did you do the time math earlier? I said my ex dumped me in August. I adopted Rufus the first weekend in October. I had been looking for a place to adopt from for over a month. I needed to rescue someone because I needed to believe rescue is possible. That trauma doesn't make us worthless. That a hurt thing can be loved. That a flawed thing can be cared for. That a difficult personality can still attract someone who won't give up on them.

*

*

Another of my exes who married the next serious thing used to make me feel very strange. He was a hardworking capitalist who loved to blow money on his poorer friends. One day I was finally able to put my finger on how he made me feel. He wasn't loving me as a full, complex individual. He liked me as an accessory. Just like he would spend $300 on shirts randomly, to make himself look good, just like he adored his French cuffs with cufflinks, he liked having me on his arm. Me, the poor bartender. The poet. The activist. I gave him a sort of credibility, a boost to his personality. I made him feel good about himself.

A lot of people keep pets without loving them as full, complex individuals. To that ex, I was just a bird in a cage.

*

I work a lot. If I ever go a couple days without really focusing on Rufus for a while, and really giving him attention, I find out. He reminds me. As he's following me from room to room, like he does, at some point he'll let out a strange meow and rush past me, biting my leg on the way. I don't think it's painful, but I do have a high threshold for pain. It's more of a warning. Or sometimes on the arm, if I'm just lying on the couch ignoring him.

I know what it feels like to be ignored.

But just like me, and just like cats kept in cages, and just like dogs kept on chains, Rufus is a whole, entire, living being. He has a personality. He has desires. He has needs. 

He prefers to be watched at mealtimes. He loves falling asleep in my armpit. He adores chicken liver so much that once I forgot some on the counter and he ate a quarter kilo in one go, even though he'd already had his meal. He doesn't scare or startle easily. He always wants belly rubs and will never do the hind-leg-kick so many cats do when they ask for belly rubs. He likes his ears to be petted. He goes crazy for catnip. Sometimes if I'm eating something meaty for dinner he wants to get his face all up in it, just like that steak restaurant roof, and it's really hard to convince him to leave it alone. His ginger spots on his nose look like a funny moustache. His white-tipped ears look tie-dyed. He loves climbing and jumps like a gazelle. He truly enjoys it when I sing him lullabies.

And sometimes, he gets moody.

And sometimes, I get moody.

I wonder if Rufus ever has nightmares about being returned to The Cats' Cradle once again? I had to board him one weekend and chose the poshest place I could find. They had a camera in his cubby and every time I checked on him he was curled up in his bed, doing nothing. When I returned, they asked me to come get him out of the cubby because he wouldn't come out for them.

When I came into the room and said his name, he heard my voice and his eyes went as big as Baby Yoda's. He poured himself into the cat carrier like liquid, ready to go home.

Home. Forever. Forever home.

*

So to answer your question, "What [was Rufus] trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

I think Rufus was trying to tell you, I'm hurt. I don't understand why, or how to get better. What I really need is someone to be patient with me, and focus on me, and make me feel safe. Someone to treat me not as an accessory, but an actual living individual.

I think to help Jenson, you need someone who will give him those same things. Someone who understands a thing or two about trauma. Someone patient. Someone forever.

*

Dear Shangning, thank you for helping Rufus and me find one another.

Dear Jenson, so many of us know what it's like to feel so strongly that you hurt people. But there's someone out there for whom you aren't too much. I pray they find you soon.

Love,

Someone who was also too much.

*********************************

Rufus and me the day we first met, heading home from The Cat's Cradle:

The first time Rufus slept on my lap:

Rufus sleeping in my armpit:

Cuddling at home:

Would you get a load of this cuteness?

A couple of clowning lovebirds:

After I brought him home from the boarding place, he fell asleep holding onto me:

27/30: prompts include writing a letter, using birdsong, among others.

Dear Andrea:

Things are good here.  The weather

has gone hot again, and the rains

should start back up soon.  My new job

is hard and I love it; two of my students

have now written poems.  Isn’t that

some kind of particular magic?  There are birds

that I listen to every night; I’ve been trying

to place their call.  One sound, one high

syllable just now, then again, and again

time to time and if I stand on my apartment

rooftop I can hear it echoing

                                                across town.  I haven’t

managed to actually see one of these birds.

I read yesterday an idea that a teacher

cannot really teach, that the student must learn

on their own, that all the teacher can do

is encourage the learning.  If that’s true, two

of my students have managed to learn

to write poems all on their own

and I’ve never seen a one of these birds.

Their call ends in an E-sound.  One night

I decided it was THREE.  THREE.  THREE.

I think about what I’m learning here, and who,

if anyone, is my teacher.  I go up

to the roof to escape the subtropical heat

if it is not raining and look out

at every sleeping window and marvel at the lives

they all contain.  One day soon a student

will give me a third poem, then a fourth

and I want to say I have taught children

to read but surely I only helped them

to learn.  What a precise alchemy it is,

and I watch as their little eyes solve

the squiggles, as their tiny mouths move

and all the right sounds come out and in

the night I reach out for these birds I cannot name

and I grasp them and tie my worries to their

little bird feet and let go, learning to watch them fly

FREE.  FREE.  FREE.

Shout out and promo

I'm not anything even remotely approaching a big deal, so when I have supporters, they mean a lot to me.  I think a lot about Renee Dillon, who I met at a camp we used to go to, who says the sweetest things and always buys my books.  I think about Andrea Milligan who every year sings my praises and posts a link to my blog talking about how she likes what I write.  And now I have a new foreign internet friend, someone named Taidgh Lynch whose blog is Raging Planet Fire.  Stats show me where my viewers come linked from, and since Taidgh linked to me after trying his hand at a chopped-and-screwed poem, I've gotten like ten whole people come over.  That may not sound like a lot, but it means a lot to me.  So check him out.  He's poeming this month, but he also does wicked mail art now and then which anyone would be lucky to receive.  Go give him like at least ten links back, okay?  Thanks, friends.

9/30: Dear Veet: #notbuyingit

(Backstory here)

I still vividly remember the first time I shaved my legs.

It was being granted the permission more than anything, honestly, having watched

the other girls shed their peach fuzz one by one, congratulating one another

as it happened, and me, I mean

come on.

Look at me.

They had peach fuzz but I was outgrowing most of the boys,

and of course that carried plenty along with it.  But my iron mother,

who ruled the house and my body from hairy head

to hairy toes, said no, said

I needed to keep my childhood, my innocence, a little longer.

Whatever.  Eventually she caved and who knows why

but it happened and I wrote her a thank you letter afterward

in which I described how the only thing that felt finer than my clothes

brushing against one of my new naked legs was the other leg.  I stood

in the kitchen rubbing them like some diva cricket.  I went to school

and no one said a thing.

Whatever.

Fast Forward.  And there’s angry red bumps, painful stubble, cuts and bleeding;

razor blades get dull and need replacing and I’m less pretty 

than the other girls because of my stubble, my red bumps,

my ingrowth, then someone said

try Veet.

I did.

It didn’t work.  At all.  Whatever.

When I moved to Wisconsin I quit shaving.  A girl from Arkansas

dabbed smack into winter, I mean come on.  Of course

I took what extra insulation I could get.  Then I was married

and who cares at that point, right? But after the split I was working

in the UK and my friend said

try Veet.

I did.

Different formulas in different countries?  Who knows.  Oh, it worked.

Diva cricket was back and wearing bikinis all across the Mediterranean

even taking her top off here and there, so hairless and proud and sexy

and woman and sexy and woman and hairless and proud.

Then my stems and I were back in the states again, where it didn’t work.

Again.  Whatever.

Until a woman taught me to epilate and the pain

was real

but worth it.  No hair and no stubble and it stayed gone

for weeks but when it came back it came

ingrown and I had to pick

at the bumps to get it to break through

and there were angry red bumps

again and sweet merciful fuck all I ever wanted

was a sexy, hairless, thirty four inch inseam

to outshine all the other girls because this

is what we do, right?  Our lot

as women, we change

we alter we torture we fix we improve upon

because we are broken and wrong and naturally

not

desirable and it’s so so important

that we be desired.

Whatever.

I reassessed.  Decided function was so much more important

than frivolity.  Let it all grow in, everywhere, all of it

for learning, for science, found my armpits

were a huge disappointment.  It grew in short

and sparse and only made me stinkier.  So that came back off.

My downstairs?  I keep a trim welcome mat

because I like having something that differentiates me

from a nine year old but beyond that

it’s hardwood floors baby because when company comes calling

I want to make sure no one ends up flossing, and my legs?

Well.

They’re just as Atheist Jesus made me because there is literally

no function served by getting rid of all that and red bumps

can shove off except now,

Veet,

your commercials have told me that if I have hair on my legs

I am actually an actual man.

In actuality.

That’s right.  The commercial starts with a handsome gentleman

waking up to his lover’s leg being thrown across him and he reaches

down

to rub hair.

And jumps up.

And shrieks.

And grabs for the covers because his lover is now

a man in a silk nightie apologizing, explaining,

“I just shaved yesterday.”

Bitch I ain’t shaved more years than I have, how much

of a man am I now?  Does this mean I don’t have

to be afraid in parking garages at night

any more, can I get equal pay now, can I wear

what I want to a party and drink

as much as I like and not watch the glass?  Can I cut

in line?  Take up too much space
on the train? Can I interrupt women and explain things to them

that they already know?  Can I get called on more

in class ?  Can I get promoted

more easily and without being asked

who I fucked?  Can I be 49% of the US population but 83%

of its government?  Can I choose not to have children

without being asked why?  Keep my surname without

being interrogated about it?  Get better funding

and sponsorship for sports, be angry and justified rather

than “on my period,” drive carelessly without

having it blamed on my sex, can I fuck as many partners

as I like and be applauded rather than branded?

Can I now be told by Almighty God that I deserve

to be head of my household, that no woman

may try to teach me or even speak when I’m talking?
Hey Veet?  Can I now be the same gender

as Almighty God himself?  Hey Veet --

the man who wakes up in the bed in your commercial?

His chest is hairless, his face is beardless, is that man

now a woman?  Hey Veet, let me offer you

some direct quotes from my male lovers who I began

to ask, after fucking, what they thought

about my legs:

1)      “I didn’t even notice.”  That’s from the man

who actually squatted next to my legs

as he cuffed my ankles to a spreader bar before we spent an evening

exploring boundaries together.  He was probably lying

but that night was amazing.

2)      “I just figured it was part of your whole thing

you got goin’ on.”  That man fucked me four times

in one night.

3)      “When you fuck like that, who cares?”  That’s

my personal favorite.

Which is to say, Veet,

not one of them squealed

or grabbed for the covers

or pulled away after their hands brushed

against my legs; these lanky cricket legs

have been wrapped around more heads

than it took to approve your bullshit

BADvertisement campaign and each face

is left with a smile.  Hey, Veet

your series of commercials checks so many

boxes it may as well have come straight

from the first season of Mad Men, talkin’

misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism --

oh yeah, there's an Asian pedicurist, too --

but WHATEVER:

I'm exercising

my VEETO.

I'm fucking perfect

just as I've grown.

I ain’t buyin’

yo shit

and no

you cain’t even

have a sample

of mine.

**drops mic, leaves stage**

Dear Russia and Germany:

When I look at the statistics of my blog, I see that many of my readers live in Russia and Germany.  Can I ask how you found this blog and why you read it?  I'm super interested in how I got readers outside of the U.S., let alone countries that don't primarily speak English.

4/30: To The Coworker

To The Coworker Who Said, Loudly,
In His Man Voice In His Man Body,
In The Kitchen When Her Song Came
On The Radio, "Rihanna Deserved
To Get Beat," And In That Instant
Became My Abuser:

NO.

You do not get
to hold our names
and our fates
in your great
and terrible mouth.

My Letter to Governor Mike Beebe

Helpful links about what's going on:
http://www.kuar.org/kuarnews/27466-beebe-s-opposition-to-gay-marriage-won-t-budge.html
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2011/06/29/mike-beebes-very-bad-night

An abridged version of this letter is now up on the Arkansas Times website at http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/beebes-place-in-history/Content?oid=1852081 , and can apparently be found in the Times's newsstands this week.


Dear Sir:

I need to tell you a story about my grandmother. Do you actually read these, or is there (more likely) a crew of employees who screen them for you? Either way, it is a cautionary tale, and a tale that you desperately need to hear, I'm afraid.

My grandmother was born Virginia Dare Swepston in something like 1911 or so. She married Beauford Jennings Wallace, with whom she'd been in love literally since the second grade, and gave birth to three baby boys, one of which was my father. My father grew up on a farm with a grain company owned by my grandfather. By all accounts, they were the typical Arkansan family, real "salt of the earth" type people.

The story that you need to hear, and you do honestly need to hear it, is a story my father tells me about my grandmother, for whom I am named. He tells me it was a day in late September, 1957, and he was in the kitchen, watching my grandmother do the dishes. She was very dedicated to her husband, their family, and their home, and caring for all three was her full-time job. My father was watching her wash the dishes until she looked out the window... and what happened next is what you most desperately need to hear.

She glanced up and saw a line of military vehicles passing in front of the house. At that time, there was an old Arkansas highway that ran past my father's childhood home going from Memphis into Little Rock. When my grandmother saw these vehicles, she became enraged. She threw down her dishtowel and ran outside to stand in the front yard with her apron on, shake her fist angrily at the vehicles, and yell at them.

It just so happens that these vehicles were, in fact, the 101st Airborne on their way to help the Little Rock Nine attend school at Central High, where their very lives were in danger from people like my grandmother for simply wanting equality.

I wonder how this story makes you feel. I wonder if you think that what my grandmother did was wrong or whether she was right. I wonder if you can imagine the shame I feel when I tell this story. My memories of my grandmother are good ones. She was always so kind, so extremely classy. She was the perfect example of a Southern belle to me. This one story, however, this brief moment discolors my memory of her. It makes me remember that at her core, my grandmother was a racist woman who went to her grave holding on to her beliefs.

It's easy to say, "But that's just how things/people were back then." But saying that is the wrong answer, Mr. Governor. Saying that excuses behavior that was wholly wrong and minimizes the importance of the issue. Without the people who stood up to question that type of behavior, we would never have had positive change. We would never live in a world like we do today, where I can look at what my grandmother did as wrong and pray for her forgiveness.

I tell you this story, Governor Beebe, as a warning. My shame will become your grandchildren's shame if you do not change your words and your actions and soon. I am embarrassed by this tale. I am ashamed of my grandmother. Even as I have good memories of her, I cannot forget that racism was a big part of who she was, and it leaves me feeling disgraced and humiliated when I think of it.

Sir, when you spoke in front of the Stonewall Democrats recently, you told them that you do not believe they deserved the same equal rights afforded to their heterosexual neighbors. You told them that not only should they accept their second-class status, but that they should refrain from being visible and active in demanding equality. You were no better than my grandmother standing in the front yard, shaking her fist at the 101st.

Some have tried to explain your actions. Some have said that even though you don't need to say those words in hope of being reelected, that perhaps you have said them in order to help build your legacy, in order to influence the way you will be remembered. What you did, and what you said, will accomplish just that, Mr. Governor.

But you have a choice, in the same way that Governor George Wallace had a choice. He chose to change his position from the easy answer to the right answer. Sixteen years after his 1963 inaugural speech in which he spoke strongly in favor of segregation (“segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever), he said the words “I was wrong. Those days are over and they ought to be over.”

And hear me when I say, sir, that if you do not open your eyes and realize you are wrong just as he was wrong, just as my grandmother was wrong, that this is an issue of equality for all and civil rights and human rights, your grandchildren will remember you with shame in their hearts. I pray for you just as I pray for my grandmother:

May God forgive you,
Susan Virginia Wallace



Write him yourself at:
http://governor.arkansas.gov/contact/index.php

In Which the Traveler Addresses Her Father Directly

Dear Dad:

I *know* you told me you didn't want me to go exploring off on my own, but then you knew when you told me not to that I have before and would again, right?

I was smart about it! I used the directions in my Lonely Planet guide to get across town to the National Palace Something Museum because it's supposed to be this like treasure trove of history and antiquities and stuff.

Dad, I saw statues of Buddha from the fourth century. I saw pottery from the year 1 Billion BCE or something. But even more importantly, I ran into a Mucha exhibit.

Mucha, you know, Alfons Mucha? The Czech painter who had that art nouveau style with all the pretty flowing ladies? He was also something of a politico in his later years, and I got to see this image of his I've had a crush on since I was a little girl called Zodiac. I also got introduced to a new painting that made me cry. It was called something like Spring Awakens Earth or Spring Awakening the Earth or something. This really big painting, a burst of spring colors, all spring green and light blue, and in the middle, one woman leans in to wake up the other with this tender sweet love care all over her face...

I negotiated the MRT too, the public subway-type transit here. The guide book told me which stop to get at, and the kids in the hostel told me how to get to the one to get on here. On the way I passed a cigar shop. Guess what isn't illegal in Taiwan? Montecristo #4s. YUMMMMM. Got to the rail and kinda stood back and did my Monkey-see trick before jumping in to Monkey-do after observing enough people. Figured out my route, bought my pass, headed there.

Here's what's fun: looking out windows. WOW.

I got off at my stop and it was super cute and looked like a nice area. I bought some sushi bites and some hazelnut milk tea and sat in the middle of the area and watched for a while. Just as I was finishing up, a bus I needed pulled up so I ran over and hopped on. Monkey didn't see anyone pay the driver so monkey didn't do it herself. They paid when they got to their stop though. I said, "How much money?" He said "15." I gave him 15 and got off the bus and looked around like where's this palace museum... OH THERE. THE HUGE FRIGGIN THING ON THE MOUNTAIN.

Dad it was really cool. I took a lot of photos. I found, though, that rather than removing my driver's licence from my wallet, I had removed my student ID! So no fatty discount for me, whoops. I did, however, act confused and very sad when I found that the ticket that got me into the antiquities would not get me into the Mucha. The folks at the door got nice and, since it was closing time, let me get in for free anyway. Oh man I get choked up just thinking about that beautiful painting!

Then there was a garden outside, and I strolled around and... man what gives? I'm still in my twenties! But ugh how my feet hurt and oh how the small of my back hurt! Just uncool.

I bussed it back to the MRT stop, and strolled around and poked in stores and stuff some more. Here's where I'm a stupid American: people cut in lines a lot here, and step in your personal-space-bubble and don't give a crap and it makes me fume a little. But otherwise they are really strict about following the rules. Like, the sign says no food or drink on any of the public transits - SO NO ONE EATS OR DRINKS. I mean, there are signs like that everywhere back home but don't nobody pay no mind. Here's a mystery: I can't ever find a trashcan, but neither can I find any litter. How does that work? When I could never find a trashcan in Mexico, I understood why there was litter all over the place. But here there's neither. Really strange. So I end up carrying my trash around with me until I find one.

MRT back, and went the wrong way about four stops on the last leg, so I had to swap and take like 7 or 8 stops to get back, at which point I wasn't sure exactly which road on the roundabout I'd come in on so I just headed the direction I figured the hostel was in and bam, once again, good old sense of direction took me right back! Sweet.

I didn't go out last night. I just couldn't do it. I took a shower and was in bed by 9:30. I have a roommate from Ohio who's a really cool cat, and we stayed up talking for a while before another roommate came in hungry and the two of them went out. I thought about it, a quick night stroll before passing out, but I was so comfy and the idea of putting on shoes again did not appeal at all.

Today I think I'll head on down to Pingtung (or Pingdong, depending on who you ask). I'm ready to quit living out of bags and unpack. I couldn't find my toothbrush last night so I scrubbed my teeth with my washrag and then flossed and rinsed some water around for a bit. This aggression will not stand.

And so, I went against your wishes, but how about this concession: I will always be careful when I continue to go off on my own and keep my wits about me and not follow creepy Disney villains down dark alleyways so they won't turn me into a genie and stuff me in a bottle.

All my love,
your crazy daughter.

My letter to CNN

Why does Kyra Phillips hate her own sex? This morning I watched as within five minutes of each other, she made two comments that each on their own set women back decades.

First she covered the republican presidential debate in which it seems Michele Bachman did well. Kyra's words, paraphrased, were: "Do we even need Sarah Palin any more?" She then further explored this tragically sexist question by even calling up a guest and asking his opinion which, as an apparently straight, cisgendered, white man of privilege was: "NO."

What on earth makes a quesiton like that acceptable? When Mitt Romney did well, did Kyra say to herself, "Do we even need Pawlenty any more?" The question is based only in sex and when boiled down to its core is, Do we need this token candidate with a vagina any more now that we have this new token candidate with a vagina? I am not a Republican. I have no love nor respect for Palin nor Bachman. But so help me, there is room for more than one vagina in a presidential race, and Phillips not only insinuating otherwise but bringing guests on to further such a discussion is disgusting and pathetic.

Then she went on to a story about Weiner in which she became the first anchor, journalist, or newsperson of any sort that I have yet witnessed to turn the microscope around onto the women. I'm amazed it took this long, to be honest, but never suspected it would be a woman who went there first. She asked of her guest a question she appeared to be wanting to ask the women, and her words (and again I paraphrase except for the pivotal word) were: "Ma'am, why are you such a HO."

Ho. The colloquial term for WHORE. As in: a person who engages in sex acts for money. As in: the word that is slung at any woman as an insult more than any other negative word in the English language. And what is this "whore's" crime? Presumably none. We have no evidence that these women solicited or even wanted these photographs. And if we assume they did - which, by the way, is a huge assumption - ...so what? The Weiner story is exactly what Weiner, our POTUS, and many others have said: A Distraction. The man is only guilty of being an exhibitionist, being a little kinky. Who among us has never done a single thing that might raise a neighbor’s eyebrow? In the meantime, Senator David Vitter gets away with bribing his sex scandal into silence with $96,000 and illegal lobbying jobs. In the meantime, Senator John Ensign admits to using the services of prostitutes. And in the meantime, Kyra Phillips would rather call these anonymous, innocent women WHORES on her program, compounding this terrible distraction and committing a grave crime against her own sex.

Not long after her program, or perhaps still within it, a story ran about Tracy Morgan, and how he is going to return to Nashville to apologize for his harmful words against the LGBTQ community. What, if anything, will Phillips do to “make right” her truly horrible actions and words against all women this morning? Here’s a hint: an apology would not be enough. This woman honestly needs to take time off of her job to get educated on what is and isn’t acceptable to say about women. Nothing else can prevent future errors, which obviously stem from some much greater problem, a negative and disparaging attitude toward females. There are those who would argue sexism is dead in today’s society: I would encourage those people to only watch five minutes of Phillips to see that it is sadly alive and well and even perpetuated by its victims.

Day 18 poem 16 mad lib

From a prompt by Erica Miriam Fabri:

The Best Day of the Whole World

Dear Adam,

Today was The Best Day of the Whole World.
When I woke up, I looked at the inside of my hand
and the lines in my palm had re-curled themselves
to say: rhubarb pie. Holy Moses, I thought, today really is
The Best Day of the Whole World. When I got into
the bathtub, my bar of soap had re-shaped itself
into a heron. I danced the dervish's whirl while I scrubbed
my naked self, because I was so delighted.
When I got onto the subway, every single person
was wearing cerulean shirts and shoes.
It was so lovely, the entire train looked like lapis lazuli.
And boy oh boy, do I love lapis lazuli. On the street,
I noticed my limbs were longer than ever before.
I felt like a new woman! I felt like diving,
but I’d never learned how. It was then that I looked-up
toward the sky and saw that it was doing amazing things:
the clouds looked like the man I love’s collarbone, glowing.
Lightning bolts began to take over the sky like sorcery;
the funny thing is, there was no rain—just sharp lines
of electricity that I am certain were forming the map
that would point me in the direction I needed to go.
That’s when I thought of writing you this letter, Adam,
to thank you for all that you are and to let you know
that not a day goes by where I am not grateful for you.
You are something greater than an outer-space of albatros.
You are a Rolls Royce. You are a Babylonian garden. You are lapis lazuli.

6/30: Write a letter to someone dead.

Dear Gin:

I'd like to say first that I'm sorry
I haven't talked to you in so long but now
that you're dead it's difficult,
naturally, I'm sure you understand.
To be fair, I haven't heard much
from you either. I guess I wanted
to thank you for a few things. First,

for trying so hard to make me a lady.
Sit up straight and cross your legs and
use the smallest fork first and all
the other seemingly trivial things
you'd remind me of that added up
to make a larger message: be lady-
like. And I am. Lady-like, anyway.
Then, for being so darned beautiful

in all of your old photos, for meaning
that I came from Beautiful Stock, that I
might one day grow up to be beautiful too,
and for the other photos, all the ones
of you in foreign countries, which gave
me permission to travel, in the way those other
photos gave me permission to be beautiful.
It's important to have permission
to be beautiful, I think, what with all
the messages women get today, and also
to be able to travel on your own. Thank you

for so many things. Thank you for
every single school year, the way you would
send my mother, my sister, and I off
to the big city with your credit card
because we two girls would outgrow our clothes
too fast for our parents' budget,
and you knew this, and you loved us
and wanted us to have nice things. Thank you
for the story of the way you and our grandfather

met. For the story of how his parents
were just country farming folk, never sent him
in to school, and the system found him,
third-grade age, and brought him in, and showed him
the third grade classroom, and said, you could
go here if you wanted, these children are
your age. Showed him the second grade classroom
and said, this is right in the middle, if
you like, showed him the first grade class
and said this is the beginning. What do you think?
And my grandfather, the love of your whole life,
just a boy, looked up, smiling, and said:
What classroom was the black-haired girl in?
Of course she was you. This story gave me
permission to believe in love. Do you see

the trend, Gin? O woman who refused to be called
Grandmother because of what it might imply,
woman who threw respect to the wind and said
instead we should call you by your nickname,
Gin, from Virginia, the name I now bear in honor
of all your stories, thank you for what
your stories teach me and thank you, even,

for the story I hate to tell, the story
my father told me, the story in which it is
late September, 1957, and my father is watching
you do the dishes, happy in the kitchen of
his childhood home, happy in the way that only
a privileged white boy in Arkansas in the 50s
can be as he watches his beautiful mother
do dishes, smiling, in the home his father,
who loves his mother, built for his family,
whom he also loves, and shows it. In this story
you are elbow deep in suds when the trucks go past,
down the highway which runs right in front
of your house, and you look up, and you see
the line, as dark green as they tell me
your eyes must have been, and you throw

down your dishtowel and you run out into
your front yard to shake your fist and scream,
as if it were anything other than ineffectual,
at the 101st Airborne on their way
to do nothing other than help a few kids
go to school. Thank you for what I've learned
from this story too, that even gods
and goddesses can be wrong, that it is
my destiny to learn from my heritage,
that my shame is my teacher, that I
can be like you and different at once,
that I can be lady-like, beautiful,
well-traveled, deserve nice things and
deserve to be loved but that I
should love others, too.

Sleep well,
your loving granddaughter.

What's this? Dirty laundry?

Dear Becca:

It has been eleven weeks since the disillusionment of our friendship. May 18th, I woke up to find some messages from you in my inbox accusing me of some very hurtful and completely untrue things. When I replied, hoping to help you understand the truth of the situation, you wanted to hear none of it. We had some scary phone calls that day, and then it was over.

Since then I’ve sent you one message (seven weeks ago), trying to get some sort of explanation about why you allowed our friendship to be what you consider a casualty of your battle with cancer (although since I never signed any treaty aligning myself with the Nation of Cancer, I’m not sure how that works). Since then we’ve had one single phone conversation on or around July 3rd, when you called asking me whether I’d spoken to a girl who had just walked out of Central Park while you were working there. That’s it, the extent of our communication, and you should know that.

Which is why I’m very perplexed about why I had to explain to someone lately that I have neither forwarded you any messages that he and I had exchanged nor called harassing or threatening you or calling you names like “cunt.” I know that you and I have shared many friends, and when a ‘breakup’ like ours occurs it can be problematic for mutual friends. People have asked me what went on between us, and all I can think about is how we spent two years as such close friends. No matter why we split, I cannot ignore those two years, cannot say they meant nothing. And so I try to honor them, and you, by telling people merely this: “She said some things that I can’t bring myself to forgive.” I leave it at that.

If I didn’t forward you those messages, how did you get them? Did you conjure up his password or was it mine? What else have you read while on our accounts, what have you deleted or changed that we’ll never know about? Either way, you surely know from checking one of our accounts that I sent him a message asking him what, besides his friendships with me and the person he used to call his best friend, has changed since he came to know you. And as I asked him that, I couldn’t help but ask myself.

I came up with five names right off the top of my head: Mandy, Tommy Thrash, Tracy, Tyler, and Tommy Hampton. These are all people that I used to talk with, laugh with in bars, consider friends before you told me things about them, things you said they’d done to you. You told me these people said unkind things to you, about you, and because of the way you told the story, and because I thought you were someone I could call my best friend, I believed you without hesitation. I judged these people based upon your evidence. Who else should go on that list that I can’t recall, or that I’m not even conscious of?

And now I am hearing “evidence” about myself that you’re giving to other people: that I call you on the phone and am unkind, or that I forward messages, and I can only think of two things. One is, WHO ELSE is she telling this to, WHAT OTHER complete fabrications is she conjuring up and spreading about me? Because I’ve caught some sideways glances from some mutual friends of ours since the split, which I had chalked up to general awkwardness, but now I’m starting to wonder what lies they’ve been fed. The second thing is, WHAT of the things you told me while we were friends ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE was also entirely made up? And that’s when the real shame and guilt sets in, and I realize that I was an unwitting accessory in your framings. That’s why I’m giving copies of this letter to the people I feel I judged wrongly. I deserve a little public humiliation for what I’ve done. They deserve apologies and I’m going to make sure they get them, from this letter as well as from me personally the next time I see them in a bar and buy them a beer. If they can bring themselves to forgive me, that will be radical. If not, I’ll just have to live with what I’ve done, but at least I’ll know I tried to make it right.

I guess the only other thing I keep wondering is how you allowed this to happen. Why, first of all, you said those unkind things to me and never cared to apologize for them or take them back. Sure, you apologized for the fact that I was hurt by what you said, but let’s not kid ourselves – that’s not a real apology. I know from what you have told me that you hate any comparison to your “crazy mother” or when people try to look at your battle with cancer, issues with your fathers, or other problems in your life as a basis for your behaviors. I’ve been there for you when you cried about this in the past. It seems that someone who is conscious of those challenges wouldn’t allow herself to be affected by them… but then you also told me other things that I’m now wondering about the truth of, and I know you’re telling at least one person things about me that are utter lies. I wonder what it must be inside your head that makes you think it is acceptable to conjure up these bizarre untruths and spread them around. I wonder if you realize they are untrue as you spread them or if you yourself actually come to believe them and live them.

I’m writing you to ask you to stop. I know the very idea is silly, that maybe you can’t and maybe you simply won’t, but I have to ask. I have to ask because I’ve tried to honor what I thought was a great two-year friendship by not saying a single negative thing about you, Becca, not to anyone. All I’ve ever said is that we had a disagreement, or that you said some things I have trouble forgiving. I leave it at that. I remember asking you to do the same, and I remember you telling me you would, but now I hear otherwise.

You know I write a poem every day in the month of April, and you know that in 2008 I wrote a poem about/for you. Well I did it again in 2009, when we were still friends. I enclose it now to remind you of what was lost. I always knew I was only as close to you as you allowed me to be, that I only knew of your life what you wanted me to know; I always felt you holding me at arm’s length. But I was all right with that. I wanted only to be your true friend, your solid supporter until the end. When you pushed me away, I tried to respect and honor that. Of course it’s too late to save what we had, Becca, and that’s not why I give you this poem, or why I give copies of this letter to the people who deserve to read it. I do it to hopefully help things in the future. I can’t know whether any of this will actually make sense inside your brain, after the many things people have told me since we’ve ‘split up,’ but I have to try. I have to do it for the future friends you might have, the future hearts you might break, the future friendships you might dissolve.

The next time you start to fabricate a hurtful lie about someone, do try and see if you can stop for just a moment, take a breather, and ask what that lie might cost. This letter can’t save our friendship, but I can use it to thank you for the important lesson you taught me at least, and I can try to apologize to the people I hurt because of you. If I can also cause you to at least consider change, well then that’s three wins, and if not, let’s just remember the important lesson we learned from Meat Loaf: “Two outta three ain’t bad.”

God forgive us both,
Ginna Funk Wallace

cc: Mandy, Tracy, Tyler, Tommy Thrash, Tommy Hampton

April 24, 2009
Poem to Make Becca Jane Smile 2

Here’s the thing of it: I don’t know how to write a poem about you
without saying Every time I tell you that I love you it’s a lie.
Man nor God never invented any word to tell you what I feel
and love feels so cheap it’s a curse in four letters. I want to say: Sister,
remember that time we got in the car and we drove all day to Kentucky
and whether we went so you could see a boy or so I could forget one
doesn’t matter anymore all that matters is stopping in Loretta Lynn’s
Country Kitchen on the way back for an impromptu photo shoot. That’s closer
to the kind of love I want to convey, I want to say At least once a day
I think about the time we turned that corner and saw the four women
praying to end abortion and I said Girl just look down and we turned into the lot
and walked inside, hand in hand. I’m getting warmer. I try: I’m glad
your brilliant academic career fell flat on its face so I can at least still see you
even if it’s only once or twice a month and we can sit in the sunshine and talk
about our lives like that’s actually what we’re talking about instead of
why on earth they say the Greek had four words for love and the Eskimos
have twenty or so and I don’t have a single one that can tell you what I mean.
Now I’m getting really warm. If I say the word Friend it’s a sorry excuse.
If I say Soul Mate it’s trite, overused, and Best Friend always fit better
on a key chain anyway. I’d tattoo you on my heart but no one would be able
to see it, it’s important to me that everyone see it so I say: No one has ever
made me feel so completely KNOWN, I say: Comrades, Cohorts, Compadres,
say: the best day of my life was that day when I called you crying on campus
because I was afraid you were good as dead already and you answered
and you cried right back and you’ll always be the strongest woman
I’ve ever known. Say I want to be you when I grow up, say you knew
all of this before I even wrote it, didn’t you? Say I love you
isn’t strong enough but I love you anyway.