Planning is impossible, but I know later in the year, I’m going to need a metric buttload of scarves for a bunch of projects. Blanket yarn crochets up into scarves tickety-boo, because scarves are just blankets you stop stitching at an awkward moment.
Bad things happen when I am bored, so before the surgery, I lined up some projects and put together the materials. Here, we see some art supplies in the process of becoming a blanket for my husband, who asked for one. A blanket, not a husband. I couldn’t crochet him one of those.
Pete’s mother made tablecloths thirty or forty years ago out of long pieces of bright, floral fabric. They are simply done, but the seams are straight and the corners crisp. My mother laughed when she saw them. I said, “Sylvia made those.” My mother, who knew Sylvia well and misses her, stopped laughing and ran her fingers gently around the petals, around and around.
Perhaps you remember these among my many antics:
Okay. Okay. Okay: we’re sitting in the car on the way home and I burst out laughing.
Tata: Omigod, I forgot to tell you something.
Pete: You like my rugged good looks?
Tata: Pffft! Like I shut up about that. Remember I took a shower for about a year before we went out?
Pete: I remember.
Tata: And remember that I’ve been glum about my hair for weeks?
Pete: How could I forget?
Tata: And I’ve been putting my hair up in a ponytail to avoid dealing with it?
Pete: I’m still snickering. I mean, sure.
Tata: And since I got sick I’ve been complaining I could smell fever on my scalp?
Pete: Hoo boy, yes.
Tata: And you know how we bulk shop at Costco and use giant bottles of smelly goo?
Pete: Indeed I do!
Tata: Well, I was in the shower before and I washed my hair, and I was really frustrated because I couldn’t get the shampoo to lather, which I thought was because my scalp had suddenly become oily or something. So I washed my hair a second time and still no lather and I was just like, “What?” So finally I turned the bottle around and if you can believe it, I have been washing my hair for – like – six weeks with conditioner.And then, when I expected him to drive off the road in stupefaction at my antics, Pete said the most extraordinary thing.
Pete: I know.
What?
Tata: What?
Pete: I was looking through the bottles on the shelves in the bathtub. There’s this stuff, that stuff, some other stuff and I said, “What’s she washing with?”
Tata: And you didn’t say anything?
Pete: Nooooooo. You’re mysterious.
Tata: I’m not mysterious, I’m – like – stupid.Don’t panic! I’ve washed my long, luxurious blond hair, glazed it, conditioned it and come clean about this episode with every last one of my female co-workers, and at the end of the story, when they’re gasping at my ability to move about in society without a keeper, I can see they are mentally reviewing the products in their bathrooms.
So you will be unsurprised to discover ridiculous history repeating today.
Tata: Do you want to pick out conditioner?
Pete: No. Yours is just fine.
I had just recycled an empty bottle of conditioner so I made the puzzled face.
Tata: What conditioner?
Pete: The small container.
Mentally, I sorted through the products and came to a startling conclusion.
Tata: I’ve been washing my face with conditioner, haven’t I?
If no one has invented the in-shower reading glasses, I’ll get right on that.
My neighbor put up her friend’s article on Facebook.
DEAR WHITE FEMINISTS, YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO IGNORE WOMEN OF COLOR ANY LONGER
Reckonings of all sorts are coming. It has been a good time to listen and learn. What are we talking about here?
Okay, mainstream feminist community, it’s time that you and I had a little talk.
You’ve not only screwed up. You’ve screwed up badly. And it’s usually after you’ve been given chance after chance after chance to get your act together.
That’s why I have a proposition for you. It’s time for a Come To Jesus meeting. Hear me out.
Jesus and I meet for cocktails all the time, which may be why I screw up all the time. Even though I know the author is not speaking to me, what have I done?
The celebrity nude photo hacking scandal is just the latest way in which mainstream feminism has screwed up with women of color.
Let me stop right there and stipulate a few things.
1. I have no time for celebrity gossip because my own shallowness is very high maintenance.
2. I am not making fun of the author or light of her points; au contraire, it is I that are small and covered with fur.
3. Being a celebrity means that pictures of your flesh are worth money, especially to creeps. If you take nude pictures for your own fun, some jackhole will steal them because they are worth money, especially to creeps. This is part of the Being A Celebrity package. Everyone, I hope, understands this sordid crap, so I’m not sure where we’re going.
We’re getting more than a little tired of having us and our issues ignored unless they happen to dovetail with what you find important. We’re tired of having to fight for ourselves with no help or support from you. And we’re especially tired of being expected to champion your issues without question.
Yep. Straight up: that happens. If you pay attention, you can see that everywhere.
When a hacker dug up nude photos of luminaries including Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, supermodel Kate Upton and Olympian McKayla Maroney (whose inclusion brought the whole “kiddie porn” aspect to the discussion) it led to a lot of columnists and feminists to do a lot of writing. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the emphasis wasn’t deserved, because it was.
Um…celebrity gossip?
But, my mainstream feminist sisters, you all missed some folks when talking about your outrage.
Were it not for the folks at Essence Magazine, and believe it or not, the Washington Post, we never would have known that among those who had their privacy violated in this most heinous of ways was singer (and fellow Philadelphian) Jill Scott.
My shallowness is starting to peel.
How a multi-Grammy-Award-winning artist and actress escaped your notice has me a bit confused. That the nasty comments her photos garnered on Twitter got past you also makes me scratch my head a little since any time someone says something sexist to a woman on social media, mainstream feminism swarms like angry bees.
But since it’s not the first time that a woman of color has stood alone and without a mainstream feminist champion, I’m also not surprised.
I read Twitter for fun, only a day or two a week because I am ancient and have to double-bolt the front door to keep Death out on the porch, so I would not have noticed bees. Even so, it has not escaped my notice that any news story containing an African-American man or woman is followed by a radioactive comments section. The language of news stories is often biased and troubling. The obviously white commenters are often oblivious or rabid. This shit can really make you scratch your head for the future of humanity. I wade in, punch my way out, for all the difference it makes to the subjects of these stories. Also: I would not claim to be a mainstream anything; the author is not talking to me. Anyhoo:
In fact, Scott joins a pretty illustrious group that includes Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (one of the first women to run for president, although you never hear about it), First Lady Michelle Obama (the whole Fox News “baby mama” thing being my personal favorite), and a variety of other women of color.
She joins a group that includes women like Maria Fernandes, who died while taking a nap in her car between her four part-time jobs and Debra Harrell who is looking at 10 years in jail for felony child neglect for leaving her child in a park while she worked because she had no other child care option.
Every last one of us would be better off if we could get Fox News out of the hen house. Shirley Chisholm is one of the giants of modern American history. Michelle Obama is brilliant, accomplished, in enviable shape and seems like a genuinely kind person. This made me curious: what feminists does author Denise Clay read? What am I not reading? Let’s come back to this.
Scott joins the thousands of Black and Latina women who are currently missing and that get no face time with Nancy Grace. Now as I wrote that previous sentence, I realized that someone is going to say, “How can you say that we totally ignore the issues of women of color?! We spoke out for Janay Rice…”
That’s a no-brainer. Mainstream feminism couldn’t afford to ignore Janay Rice. Ignoring the video of a woman getting knocked completely out by her football player husband would have made you all look as hypocritical as Newt Gingrich leading a marriage encounter group.
And my recommendation for “Come to Jesus” would have quickly become simply “Cuss You The Hell Out.”
Nancy Grace scares me, but I absolutely see the point. Somewhere, I read that when Laci Peterson went missing, 19,000 other people were missing from California alone. I’m kind of obsessed with missing persons, so I am aware that when a person of color goes missing, the odds of a family getting help from the police and finding the person alive are truly miserable. The media’s fixation on missing blonde girls seems like a sickness when so many other people need help.
I keep watching Janay Rice’s face for hopeful signs, but worry about something in her eyes. I am afraid for her. A lot of people are talking and writing and talking some more, but I have said and written nothing because I am thinking about her family and that worries me, too. A woman can’t attain a certain age without encountering abusers and survivors and people who did not survive. I am well aware that I cannot save her and hoping she reaches out to the right people is both too much and not enough.
The stakes are a little too high for that with the 2016 Presidential Primaries coming around the corner.
I don’t believe Hillary Clinton even a little bit when she says she doesn’t know if she’s running for president yet. When she finally decided to make a statement about the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri, that was your cue. Or it should have been. Granted, she was late, and her lateness tells me that her “Kitchen Cabinet” has everything but Dishes Of Color in it, but she said something.
Everyone knows that when Clinton puts her “running for president pantsuits” on in 2016, you’re going to want women of color to be down with the cause. Some of you are still mad that we didn’t fall in line in 2008 and put your girl in the White House.
If you want us to help you make feminist history, women of color want something in return. We want our issues addressed. We want our contributions valued.
Yeah…about Hillary Clinton: I don’t know. She’s tough, she’s smart, but her politics are about 5.5 miles to the right of mine. She makes compromises that make me cringe, though every so often, she really comes through. She’s a politician who consistently surrounds herself with terrible, craven advisors. There’s a lot to worry about here, but even more worrisome is any Republican at all in the White House. Congress is fully fucked, the Supreme Court is churning out corrosive decisions on economics and money in politics and the last thing we need is a Republican President cutting the brake lines to speed our slide into serfdom. I’m not wild about the corporate Democrats, but a Republican President appointing a Supreme Court justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg scares me. It’s not a great reason to keep turning up at the polls every four years, but it’ll do.
Hillary-based equivocation aside, hearing and addressing the issues of women of color is in everyone’s best interest. People who believe that for one group to prosper, another must suffer are simply wrong. The public discourse is full of this easily detectable crap: we don’t have any money, we can’t do such and such, who’s going to pay for it? As a society, we have all the resources we need. For our purposes, though, they’re in the wrong places and in the hands of people intent on keeping us desperate and separate.
Speaking for myself, I have been watching Ferguson with horror. If the situation weren’t deadly serious, it would be laughable that the police department should behave monstrously and think it wouldn’t be seen by the entire world for the monster it is. Speaking for myself, I felt like I was watching a dying creature in a vain struggle to survive a mortal injury because – in my opinion – the balance of power has already shifted. The thing does not yet know it’s dead. Two nights ago, the Ferguson City Council meeting on Twitter cemented my belief that in one election or perhaps two, Ferguson could be a much different place, depending on the determination of the people. It won’t be easy, but I think they can do it. Register everyone to vote, vote those paper-shuffling fuckers out, dismantle the system that ties up the African-American population in the court system. Then they have to be careful, because the system will try to rebuild itself.
Speaking for myself, I’m not sure how I can contribute other than listening when other people speak and trying not to be a jerk, especially to people who meet jerks aplenty in daily life. On this here bloggy, I’m more or less talking to myself in a Dear Diary way, with a vegetable garden and sidewalk cracks, but this situation and Clay’s exhortation are not about me. It’s true that I used to write about the many, many Maria Fernandeses and Debra Harrells of this world and haven’t recently, but I am not writing much about anything recently. Still: it’s not about me. I don’t have to be afraid or defensive. It’s okay to learn.
Yesterday’s potato harvest will feed us for the week. I am totally in love with growing my own food and this would seem like a big accomplishment if my cousin weren’t swimming the English Channel this week.
Art supplies I will mail to Supreme Court justices, congressmen and governors.
Ladies, we are calling on all of you to now INCORPORATE YOUR UTERUS! This is the answer to being recognized with the rights you deserve under the “Corporations of the United States.
I like a little smutty direct action. Care to join me?
Nothing like clothes shopping to tie a sheepshank in my EEG.
The LongItalianLastName family drama continues to unfold off-stage. I don’t feel like talking about myself, so let’s talk about the unnamed university’s hunger-fighting project. KAPOW! My department participates every year, which means we get a family, some few details and go on our way. For example:
Adult #1

Age: 29

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Most Needed Items:
Pants (Women’s Large), maternity clothing
Other Desired Items:
Perfume
Other Information (Interests, hobbies, favorite book author, favorite color, etc.):
Mother is expecting fourth child in December
You can’t really picture her from this – except that you can. You see her struggling on the sidewalk and laughing on the corner. She has dark hair and dreams in color. She is very tired. Maybe someone helps her with groceries but maybe not. You know that neighborhood flooded out in the superstorm a year ago today. You can imagine the mold.
You have a month to imagine who she is and what she needs. You can buy her gifts, but she may not have a secure place to keep them. You can buy her groceries, especially groceries she may not be able to easily transport home from a store. Does she have a car?
Are grocery store gift cards appropriate for your family? If so, please specify the stores where you shop (check all that apply):
Stop & Shop
Fresh Grocer
Wal-Mart
There’s only one Fresh Grocer. It’s in town, probably about half a mile from her apartment. The local Stop & Shops and Walmarts are out of town, some up and down Route 27, some up and down Route 1. She could take buses to those. Maybe they’re near where she works. Any way around it, she probably can’t buy in bulk to feed her children because she can’t transport it, but if she could, can she store bulk items? Can she cook? It is not an absolute lock that she has a stove and an oven, but you’re willing to take some risks.
She only asks for perfume and loose clothing for herself; everything else is for her children. You think about that, don’t you? Who is she? How did she get here? Your co-workers imagine her, trade coupons and sales circulars and pick out things for her. Boxes begin to fill in sensible ways. She and her children will have food, gifts for Christmas and clothes to keep warm all winter. What you do matters.
What will you do?
Wednesday, my cousin Nancy told a story that, like all her stories, should be an episode in her own HBO series.
Tata: Are you seeing a therapist?
Nancy: I just started seeing a new one I really like, but she lives in this town where one of those dead teenager movies would take place. Have you ever heard of Roosevelt?
Tata: No. Where is it?
Nancy: That’s the thing: it’s right off 130 and no one knows where it is. It’s creepy and like time stopped. I drove out to her house and there was a flock of crows sitting on the roof. So I’m sitting in my car, looking up the spirit animal significance of crows.
Tata: What? No, don’t do that! You like her?
Nancy: I was seeing this awful man. I went to him because he had a therapy dog. All of my doctors are women so I thought I’d give this guy – I don’t know. But then I didn’t like the dog. I thought he looked dirty and he didn’t like me either. But I love dogs. The doctor had all these issues and I couldn’t talk about certain things with him.
Tata: You couldn’t talk with your therapist?
Nancy: He kept telling me I would benefit from going to Landmark Forum.
Tata: Get out!
Pete: What’s that?
Nancy: EST.
Pete: What’s EST?
Tata: It’s a cult.
Nancy: You remember my friend Meredith I just went on vacation with? She’s a therapist and she said that is soooo unethical. He should not be doing that.
Tata: So now you’re seeing a bad man with a dirty dog. It’s like going to the train station.
Nancy: I didn’t like the guy. I don’t like men doctors and his dog was – I don’t know. I pictured myself lying on the couch, stroking the dog and talking about my issues, but this was nothing like that. I don’t even think he was a therapy dog. Do you know what I mean? We sort of avoided each other. And of course I couldn’t talk to the therapist. He was kind of a round guy with a Santa beard and he wanted me to join a cult. I didn’t like him at all.
Tata: What – ? So why were you going there?
Nancy: I kind of got used to Rusty the dog. I didn’t really like him, but I got used to him. Week after week, I sort of thought I was making progress and then I went on vacation and when I got back there was a framed picture of Rusty on the desk and the therapist didn’t want to talk about it.
Tata [trying desperately to breathe]
Nancy: So I never went back.
Poor Impulse Control 