HOW DO YOU SAY

[In order to put this out into the world, I have to write a sort of prelude: I haven't read the books, and I haven't seen enough of the show to have an assured, totally informed opinion about it. What I know is that being a woman is really freaking hard sometimes, and that there are triggers which suddenly overwhelm me with all that difficulty. This show is one. It makes me reel at all the sexist bullshit that is embedded in my life--in friendships, relationships, interactions and non-interactions with strangers and coworkers--and it begins to feel insurmountable. It's people I love, it's me, perpetuating this stuff. To be fair, when I first saw GoT, I was in the pits--self-esteem was crashing and burning; I'd recently been shown a diagram by a nurse which depicted (no lie) cookie-cutter cutouts of a woman with her "heart" in her chest and a man with his "heart" in his dick; and while working in a bar, I was experiencing way more ogling and hara

The thing about living alone is that it isn’t.  You’re not.  You dance, but you want to draw the curtains first. You shuffle, but it’s with a lightness. Sure, there’s nobody waiting for the bathroom or bothered by your dishes. But there’s the clicking claws of the Australian shepherd upstairs (want. one.), the lilt of the Dubliner landlady’s evening phone calls. Some rooms you avoid because of the dimness. You’re accumulating lamps at a disturbing rate. You never used to hit your car’s panic button except now, now that you are returning, late, past the neighbors’ bedtime: a flurry of whispered curses. The hallway seems long when it’s just you to walk it. Cold stone. But then conversations carry in both directions, under doors and through the cracks of ceilings. You get to know voices. You are alone, but no, you are not. You never are. Breakfast at the round kitchen table on a rainy Monday morning with just the pipe’s rushing water for company is just what you need. Coming home me

I want to jump in the car and drive down the one lane highway some cool sunny morning, just as the mist is burning off.  I want to be hot by the side of the corn field, see the roadkill’s progress, startle a groundhog, disappear into the woods like I used to do instead of class. To linger on the hill by the big tree in the dark, under the moon, over the river.  The big sky. The smoke cloud around me.

I don't get mad often. I mean, I'll make a show every once in a while, mock exasperation, but it's usually just that: entertainment for my friends.  I get it off my chest with a laugh and it's gone. However. There are some deeper currents.  I'm at the most solid place in my life that I've ever been--I have a fulfilling job, awesome friends and family who support me, a fun relationship, good health--which throws into focus the areas that continue to stagnate.  I can't fathom the toxic junk that I've been holding onto, and for how long. At this point, it's purely self-punishment.  I ruined some relationships--friendships, screw-arounds, people who expected more or less from me than I wanted to give them--before I learned how to give myself.  Or rather, that was my beginning.  I'm still beginning.  Because here's the kicker: I am currently in the midst of a seething rage at myself for allowing myself to be vulnerable.  Vulnerable in the

TW: eating disorders Food is the conscious center of my life. I spend more time thinking about food than anything or anyone else.  Food in relation to hunger, to comfort, to my body.  Maybe it's the same for everyone?  Or I am a ravenous lunatic?  But really.  I grew up with a Paris-trained chef for a mother who had the education and the privilege to put time and work and love into everything she makes.  And salt.  Lots of salt.  From an early age I trained as a runner, which allowed me (as a teenager) to consume whole boxes of pasta in one sitting and not look like an amorphous blob.  I took food for granted until college, where I promptly became very sad and very lonely and very anxious and discovered that food is a powerful drug. By the time I noticed that I'd ballooned out of control, it was too late. I panicked. Started counting calories, restricting and bingeing, restricting and bingeing.  I had a constant running total in my head, lists of foods consumed on every

How's this for proof that libraries are not dying: on a cold, snowy Tuesday morning on which pretty much everywhere else in the county had decided to close, the library was open. And not only was it open--it was packed. The thought process must go something like "Oh shit, snow. Must panic until toilet paper and library books are acquired." Although it's more than that. I didn't fully realize the impact that libraries have on communities, despite being a semi-regular library patron for all of my reading life. In just a few weeks, I've helped a man apply for a job; showed some elderly women how to send and receive text messages; introduced a kid to a series I loved as a kid; walked a lady through the basics of downloading books to her new eReader. The library sometimes stays open as a "warming center" for the homeless and those without heat. Parents and grandparents use the library as a sort of daycare center for not-too-young children. Thanks to lib