New Year

New Year's messages are always trite and overwrought.  There is nothing special about this one specific day in this one specific calendar.  I understand the human need to both mark the passage of time and to create at least the illusion of a the chance to start over, have the slate wiped clean, and begin again.

Maybe it's not an illusion.  Maybe some people manage it, at least in some ways.  I never have.

Lately, I have been having fantasies about a savior.  About someone swooping in and saving me, like a superhero, although not a superhero; but movie-like, a someone who would come charging into my life and fix everything, save me from myself, make it all right, and give me a happy ending, at least until the credits rolled, just so the final scene would make your heart yearn desperately.  The someone would love me unconditionally, so hard it could make you cry, and they would hold me up when I felt I couldn't stand AND remember to pay all my bills on time so I wouldn't have to juggle the dates in my head, and probably clean the kitty litter, too.  These fantasies always tell me that I am exhuasted, or I have lost confidence in myself to tackle everything, or I am depressed.  Right now, it's probably the last the two. 

But I can say: I have every faith and hope in the new year.  I do.  It is child-like, maybe, but I don't care.  Tonight, I am going to pass the moment into the next year alone.  I am going to regather, call all of myself home.  I am going to begin to grow strong again.  And then I am going to walk into whatever is next, my own champion.  I will save myself.  You'll see.

It is going to be a beautiful year.

I will see you there.

Ungrateful.

 Apparently, I was not grateful enough to Sady Doyle.  There I was, once some little podunk blog (aside: I am still a little podunk blog. I rather like this, but no matter), and she came down from on high to recognize me, and give me readers, and make me something.  Let's be real: I was nothing without Sady Doyle's grace.  I should know my place. 

But yet, I have been so ungrateful: I have disagreed with Sady Doyle on something.  And made a joke about a silly argument she made (look: it was a silly argument).   And called the logical reasoning behind said silly argument "UTTER SHIT."   

Also, I was upset because I cannot have or hear any discussion about criminal justice without taking race and poverty into account.  And I am extremely wary of the state criminal justice machine, because: we know which bodies it mostly polices.  We know that it is an oppressive system.   Relying on, or championing, the criminal justice system, is not going to be the answer to oppression.  The problem, as far as I saw it, was rape culture, and I was worried that people were looking to a system that is not made for victims, and is looked at by many people in this society with distrust, as the answer to that rape culture.  And the criminal justice system: it just isn't the answer.

So when people, not any one person, not any single instance, but many people, were talking about the criminal justice system in a way that was not nuanced, that was not seeing how merely prosecuting rape for political reasons would make us ALL lose, that was advocating against the very important need to keep the state from running over the accused, that was conflating challenging charges with challenging victims, well . . . like I said, I cannot understand any conversation about criminal justice without thinking about race and poverty.  It made me nervous.  So I wrote a post with Silvana. 

I should point out that Sady and Silvana and I were all on the same side.  I had already written a post about rape culture and how the media was perpetuating it and how fucked up that was.  I just didn't like where the conversations by some people, specifically around the criminal justice system, were going.   That was my real and primary and continuing concern. 

But I have been kindly reminded by Sady that I am terribly ungracious.  I should not disagree.  What I am doing, apparently, "isn't feminism."  Also, I probably don't like that a lot of money went to RAINN for rape victims.  I am a terrible person.  Clearly.  Because who would deny rape survivors money?  Me, obviously.  Who didn't even have the good sense to shut up when I saw something I thought was wrong.

In truth, I must tell you a fairy tale.  It is in fact a true fairy tale!  Settle in, now.  So, once upon a time, there was a Gayle who was having a really hard time surviving her rape.  She was isolating herself and wasn't telling anyone anything about it.  Her therapist was getting increasingly worried about her isolation and suggested at the very least, she just start writing about it.  At least get it out.  At least don't keep it in.

So she did!  She started a blog.  And she told NO ONE ABOUT IT.  Which was the plan!  She liked the idea of getting it out into the universe, there, real, tangible, for anyone to find, but no one SHE knew, no one it would matter to, what she was writing, no audience she had to keep in mind and thus censor herself for.  No expectations.  She was just releasing all these demons into the ether.

Well, see, that's not true: she told one person her secret.  A single person.  Who had a blog.  And who recently had been writing about very personal things.  And Gayle thought in reading this blog with these personal things, well, this author, she can do this, she can write about these hard things, and it doesn't destroy her.  So maybe I can do this too.  Gayle wrote this person to thank her, in a personal email, with her real name, just to say thanks for helping her realize that putting whatever is plaguing you into words can be ok.

And then this person paraphrased and quoted from Gayle's personal email, and put a link to Gayle's blog on HER blog, which was widely read, and then Gayle had a panic attack.  Because: her blog wasn't supposed to have readers.  And her email wasn't supposed to have been public.  And her very personal shit was now VERY, VERY visible.  She felt overexposed and out of control, because she was not asked, or consulted, or told this was coming.

But, it had already happened, and she thought, well, this person with the widely read blog, she must have meant well.  I mean, right?  Gayle thought maybe she was trying to be kind with her offerings of readers, and so Gayle was gracious, and said thank you, and figured the damage was already done, and tried to take it as best as possible.

It would be the end of the fairy tale, but some days, as Gayle, I can tell you: I wish I didn't have readers.  Sometimes, I wish I didn't have followers, and I contemplate turning the comments off all the time, or going and starting some secret Tumblr something so I can ACTUALLY be more properly anonymous or sparsely read.  So, it's a little hard for me to be chided for not being grateful enough, when I was never actually grateful in the first place.  I felt, instead, at the time, used.

But no: I should be appreciative!  I now owe allegiance!  For the "demonstrated substantial personal generosity and kindness" of deigning to link to my sad, podunk blog once, in a post that was actually about how what Sady Doyle does MATTERS, and I was merely evidence of that.  But not clearing it with me beforehand.  Or warning me.  Why would I be having any control issues about anything at that moment of dealing with a rape?  Because I was nothing without Sady Doyle.

Maybe Sady is feeling hurt by our post.  But I cannot imagine so hurt that Silvana and I, with our concerns about how the criminal justice system was being invoked, were the "lowest blow" in this entire #mooreandme thing - we are not lower than the rape defenders, the rape apologists, the assholes who threatened death and bodily harm.  I'm sorry, but no.  And Sady will have to excuse me if I am still not feeling the shine of her beneficence.  I am just a lady, with a blog, trying to continue to get shit off my chest so it doesn't eat me up.  And if obeisance is what Sady needs, and everything else is "isn't feminism," then I'll take Sady's idea of what "isn't feminism" from here on out.

Update: Silvana responds here.

I no longer like Christmas.

Christmas is now over, officially by an hour, at least where I am, and I am trying to tell myself that means there will be no more occasional stabs of sadness so deep it has become physically painful, so all consuming it feels as if my lungs could fill with it and my heart drown.

Christmas reminds me of my rapist (and this post has now become even LESS fun than you probably anticipated, sorry).  All holidays do, but Christmas reminds me most of what I lost.  I have spent the last two days turning around in my head how I could possibly erase the fact and the memory of what he has done in order to reach out to him, contact him, somehow conjure again that love and awe and completeness I felt with him.  Hoping if I could just fill my head with new memories and experiences of him, immerse myself in feelings for him, I could paper over what has happened.  With enough bandages over it, goes my thinking, maybe the deep wound will just go away.

Desire constitutes the self; if I am being honest, I must admit he has created and shaped more of me than anyone else ever has.  I can't escape that.  And I can't escape the undeniable, simple fact that I miss him.

I shouldn't miss him.  But there was a decade worth of being in love, so there is an awful lot to miss.  And when it is not the rape that is at the forefront of my brain, when that has settled down quietly to sleep in the corner of my mind (it will be back, yes, I know), when I am lonely, and I wish there was someone I could love, someone in the universe I loved like that again, well . . . here we are.

I saw him every Christmas, when I went back to my parents' house.  It was a tradition for a while, too, to go to midnight mass with friends in the church where I first met him, when he walked up to me, out of the blue, some kid I didn't recognize and was sure I'd never seen before, to take my hands in his and look me right in the eye to tell me I was beautiful.  On Christmas Eve he'd sneak in the backdoor late, late, after both our families were asleep, and we'd talk, and kiss, or make love in front of the fireplace, on blankets just in front of the hearth, our skin covered in sweat and lit orange by flames.  His kisses always tasted like spring rain, and his skin would smell of the damp soil just after the shower ended.  It sounds so embarrassingly poetic, and perhaps I should be ashamed at such tawdry romanticism, but to describe it in any other way would be a lie, and I am barely finding words to capture something so ethereal as it is.  It was perhaps why we never inhabited any other reality well.  Whatever love we had, it thrived best at night, fit perfectly in dreams.  Once harsh daylight came, there was nothing but struggle.

Although, he raped me late at night, now that I think of it.  But I suppose that was how we would reclaim me - he was angry, he was afraid to lose me, I was, he said, the only thing he had ever really loved.  I do not think he was untruthful.  His fear, even when he was hurting me, was palpable.

But Christmas is over.  So I am hoping the urges to reach him, to try to erase the pain and make it all go away, to try to bring him back into my life and make the rape never have happened, will lessen.  Tomorrow it will be better.  The day after that will be even easier.  Someday soon I will have an entire day when he never even enters my head at all.  And that will be a very good day.

It never gets old!

"I blow her up . . . BALLOOOOOONS!"


.

Eclipse/Solstice!

Guys, it was PRETTY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because there can never be too many jokes trading on the lawyers = assholes equation

Seriously, this is my new favorite funny thing.  It keeps making me laugh.

And, I mean, she got me.  Lawyers, we ARE so obnoxious.  You know me!  SUCH A DOUCHEBAG LAWYER I AM.

Pro tip: If you are going to use a legal term (that is not just law school stuff!  It also exists in the real world!  In the wilds of the courtroom!), it helps if you have gone to law school, so you don't use it wrong.  A rebuttable presumption cannot be used in criminal law, because that would be unconstitutional.  Just sayin'.  

WE HAVE SOME POINTS, by Silvana and Gayle

Silvana and I, as feminists, current and future lawyers, respectively, and rape victims, have some points.  Not everyone has gone there with these, but too many people have.

1. Challenging extradition does not make someone guilty.  Fighting charges does not make someone guilty.  It implies absolutely nothing.  Julian Assange fighting his extradition TELLS US NOTHING ABOUT HIS GUILT OR INNOCENCE.  This is how the criminal justice system works.  You fight extralegal and illegal actions by states.  You hold states to the rule of law. 

2. Stop conflating challenging state prosecutorial actions and the state criminal justice machine with challenging rape survivors stories.  These are not even close to the same.  To challenge charges or state legal action is not undermining victims' assertions.  This thinking  would undermine EVERYONE'S DEFENSE.  It would mean no person could raise a defense without being accused of questioning the victim.  As the people who often end up at the defense table are disproportionately people of color and the poor in this country, having been disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system,  this is REALLY PROBLEMATIC.

3. Our chat conversation said it best:

silvana:  i dont even know what to make of sady's last post

"It is very, very low. Because Michael Moore’s actions indicate that rape survivors just don’t mean as much to Michael Moore as Julian Assange getting bail. They just don’t. He has assigned a demonstrable, monetary value to these two causes, and as far as we know, Assange is worth $20,000 and providing necessary aid to sexual assault survivors is worth $0."

i find this to be shit

 me:  i find this to be UTTER SHIT

there are no zero sum games like that in life

 silvana:  moore doesn't have any obligation to give any money to anyone

 silvana:  As far as the world knows, going out for french food is worth $100 to silvana, and helping rape survivors is worth $0

like

FUCKING SERIOUSLY

FUCK YOU

i am so mad

 me:  i just went out for dinner and paid for pizza.  I VALUE PIZZA MORE THAN RAPE PREVENTION.

 AHAHAHA

i love our examples

written at the same time

 silvana:  hahahahhaha

 me:  OUR FOOD: MORE IMPORTANT THAN RAPE SURVIVORS

 silvana:  and starving children

and people who have been the victims of landmines

 me:  and rape epidemics in the congo!

or liberia!

 silvana:  and women held as sexual slaves in thailand

 me:  sady doyle gave $50 for rape survivors.  why does sady doyle hate starving african babies?

4. It is possible both that Julian Assange did what he is alleged to have done, and also that the prosecution and potential extradition is politically motivated. If other alleged rapists are not being threatened with extradition to Sweden based on rape charges, and Assange is, that makes this a political prosecution because of his status as a political figure. That is problematic. It is relevant how other people are treated, because it's an issue of justice. We can protest, and question, the politically motivated treatment of Assange as a target for extradition without suggesting that the accusers are liars. Nuance, people. Come on.

I don't know why this is so fucking hard.

Here are some really obvious truths:

1. Making a decision to charge someone for a crime can be politically motivated.  Do governments ever fucking take rape seriously enough, unless they are alleged to have been committed by a man governments the world over hate for exposing their lies and secrets?  No.

2. Is rape a REALLY TERRIBLE CRIME THAT SHOULD BE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY and Julian Assange should be charged and tried and then if found guilty punished to the fullest extent of the law?  Yes.

3. Is it possible for Julian Assange to have done both a very good thing with Wikileaks and a very terrible thing because he has raped some women?  Yes. 

Why are these so hard to reconcile? Look, they can all exist at the same time!  There they are!  Right there!  And the universe has not come to an end.  LOOKIT THAT.

Seriously?  I LOVE WIKILEAKS.  I do!  A lot.  I think it is a necessary and important check right now on corrupt governments, and I am especially including my own here, since the media has fallen down on the job.  I think whistleblowing and secret-revealing are required when those in power try to keep the people they ostensibly serve in the dark.

And here's the thing: in my job, in my life, if I want to go after corporations or their CEOs for gross human rights abuses, the way things are going, I won't be able to do this without whistleblowers, leaks, something to nail these fucking companies to the wall.  I am going to have to depend on those people with a conscious and access from the inside to help bring justice.  So, yes, I am very invested in Wikileaks, in the idea of it, the need for it, the fact that maybe I can get my hands on some documents, enough to get reparations for the people who have been killed, tortured, maimed, and yes raped, all to turn a corporate profit.

But those people who are going around calling the rape charges hooey, or smearing the women who have filed charges, are making things worse.  You're making it worse for me, who was raped, and for all the women who have been raped, and all the women who will be raped.  You're reminding all of us how we should never file charges, that the law is not for us to defend ourselves or to grant us any kind of justice, that we are expendable in this progressive movement.  Lots of other people have been writing far better things than I have on this, but you know what this reminds me of?  An article from make/shift called, "Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements."  I really, really recommend a read.  Because: if Julian Assange is a rapist, then he can't be a progressive.  He can't be in my movement.  Because, I mean, OBVIOUSLY, but also: he is no good at questioning authority if he uses his male privilege and hurts women.  He not only is not on my side, he's NOT EVEN ON THE SIDE OF THE POWERLESS.  He is way too invested in the hierarchies of power, the very hierarchies of power he supposedly wants to bring down.  He's unable to do what he claims he wants to do, because he's using that very senseless, violent power against others.

Audre Lord said, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."  And if I am working to dismantle the house, Julian Assange, if he is found guilty and has committed the crimes of which he is accused, is not going to be able to help do that; because he finds shelter in that house, too.

I don't really care about people helping Assange post bail.  This is how the system works, and I also think he has every right to challenge the extradition - this is how the law works.  And I don't want MY country to be able to make backroom deals with other countries to illegally extradite someone they don't like or has become inconvenient.  I don't trust my country to not be shady.  And seeing as I don't want the American government to be able to lawlessly have someone extradited back here, I don't want to see anyone else lawlessly extradited anywhere.  I want everyone to follow the rule of law, the end.  And challenging extradition and posting bail are all part of that.

My problem is with the people who have been sliming, shaming, and calling Assange's accusers liars, the people who are saying to never believe rape victims, the people who are using this as an excuse to belittle women, rape, and consent.  That is inexcusable.  That is unacceptable.  And I want those people to shut the hell up.

Because that speaking-truth-to-power thing they're supposedly defending?  They've already failed.

Five things I want for Christmas.

I believe, traditionally, people talk about the three things they want for Christmas, but I'm a Jew and thus not actually getting anything for Christmas anyway, so I thought I'd dream big.  Or perhaps I am a greedy Jew!?!?  Ahahaha, THAT.

Gayle didn't actually buy herself anything frivolous this year; she lusted, that she did, but she ended up buying instead an awful lot of expensive winter running gear after spending a chunk of money signing up for the D.C. half marathon in March, but since she has been running in windchill 10 degree weather, she has been sending a hell of a lot of thanks to whomever has invented this expensive winter running gear because it is incredibly effective and indeed worth every penny when the freezing wind is blowing full force at her and she is FINE, SO.   Also, she apparently has purchased a great deal of real estate in the Third Person.  I don't know.

So seeing as I didn't buy myself anything this year that I don't actually need, here's the list of things I really, really want for Christmas.  Get on this, Jesus.

1. I want the entire world to rise up together and condemn solitary confinement and call it what it is: torture.  At the very least, it is cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.  I want every government to recognize that it is an affront to dignity of humankind, a blight upon our collective morality and conscience, and I want it never, ever used again.
2. I want whistleblowers to get human rights defender status.  Because that is what they are.  Whistleblowers are sometimes the only thing protecting us from the excesses of power and secrecy, and they are heroes, every one.  I want people (especially the U.S. media) to stop worshipping at the feet of power and get some goddamn problems with authority.
3. I want Congress to stop being the most EMBARRASSING!  ELECTED!  BODY!  EVER!  And I would like it to stop being utterly corrupted by money, money that Justice Kennedy called "speech."  Conflating money with speech is as threatening to a democracy as you can imagine.  And as a corollary, I would like the Courts to find their backbone and do their job, which is being the only effective check that we have on the insane and murderous excesses of the executive branch.  BUCK UP, YOUR HONORS.  We need you.
4. I want white Southerners to stop invoking their treason-in-defense-of-owning-black-people as their proud heritage.  The Confederacy formed to defend slavery.  Don't pretend otherwise, you assholes.
5. I want to nail making skillet cornbread.  It is surprisingly hard to find a good recipe. 

Pictures from Chez Unnatural Forces; or, Gayle has not died yet

Hey, Readers!

I am in the middle of finals period, so I am being a crappy blogmistress, SORRY.  I wrote a 41 page paper on state discipline of female sexual bodies, narratives of androcentric sexuality, and vibrators which I finished on Thursday night, and I tell you, I think I short-circuited a lobe.  And I still have a final left to study for, and some long-ass cases to write up, and my brain, I try to think and  it just goes OW.

So here's what's been going on, OTHER THAN my sitting so long in front of a computer/with a gazillion books/with a gazillion cases that my ass has been hurting for 5 days straight (true story!).

One is, I cannot tell if I am getting a cold, or your nose just runs continually when you make a practice of going out and running six miles when it is one degree above freezing.  However, I have my sick hat on - which happens to also be my snake hat, which I bought off a bunch of extremely stoned elderly gentlemen in the Atlas mountains of Morocco who were sitting around and knitting and giggling away.  Anyway, it makes perfect sense that one of these gentlemen knitted this hat while stoned, because look at it:

 
Yes, it is indeed a green-and-white-striped hat with a long snake coming from the top, with uneven, different-sized black button eyes.  It is extremely thick and warm, however, and so I am wearing it in the hopes that staying toasty combined with the fact that I am drinking enough tea to make an elephant have to pee every fifteen minutes will ward off any cold I could get.

Also, every night I have been rereading Alice in Wonderland, which is wonderfully funny and clever and a nice break for my brain.  BUT SO OFTEN, reading and owning cats are incompatible.  Because the second you open the book, a cat will crawl into it, and then THAT

is the end

of THAT.

And finally, everything is still right with the world, because it is still officially bed time when Amouch plays with my feet.  Every night before I got to bed, he HAS to play with my feet under the blankets.  It is a THING.  And a thing that we do not do in summer, because he is a vicious attacker of feet.  He would kill them dead every time, if he could, but then they are back the next night, and thank god for that, because there can be no time for bed unless the feet have been attacked, it is the rule around here.

See?  My ass may hurt, BUT EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.

My last final is Friday.  See you after that!

Wikileaks! But now catchy and stuck in your head!

I am busy writing a paper and studying for finals!

I leave you in the very capable hands of Grande Dame Helen Mirren.  I love her.

Movie Thoughts

The movie Black Swan was disturbing, but I have decided it is most disturbing for being an allegory/cautionary tale for what it's like Being a Lady.  Because basically, you have to be technically perfect, unassailably flawless, but you have to make that look completely effortless and totally sexy and wholly natural like you HAVEN'T been suffering and in pain and working your ass off and toiling and sweating and bleeding and denying yourself food and comfortable footwear for years and years and years to nail this performance, and you need to nail it before people judging you whom you are supposed to make want to fuck you if they are dudes and hate you if they are other ladies, and in the back of your mind you're fully aware that no matter your efforts and dedication someday you will get too old and be considered un-fuckable and thus valueless and tossed aside, but, you know, DON'T LOOK AT THE SEAMS OF THIS CONSTRUCTION, I just whipped this perfection out of my back pocket, this is TOTALLY ORGANIC AND LIKE SPIRITUAL, NO PAIN HERE, LOOK HOW SEXY AND EASY MY PERFECTION IS . . .


. . . and then it's not really surprising if the ladies go a little mad.

Fucking technology, how does it work?

Gentle Readers,

If you have sent me an email to the email account listed with this blog in the past three weeks, I haven't gotten it.  I mean, I've gotten it JUST NOW, but I hadn't gotten it when you sent it.  Also, I am having trouble sending email and replying to you from the gmx account.  No, I do not know why, somewhere in the webbernets there was a cave-in in the tunnels, or some of the internet gnomes went on strike, I don't know how this shit works.  I bet carrier pigeons were more reliable.

Also, there are some Christian groups that REALLY love me and enjoy sending me Jesus spam.  The fuck?

Love and Jew-y kisses,
Gayle

p.s.

I have unprotected my Twitter account.  Fuck it.  I can't ever make myself perfectly safe and secure - I can build all the walls I want, but there will always be holes I can never plug.  So I am going to stop putting my energy into wall-building.

Also, have some bookstore porn I took last week!  I bought Toni Morrison's A Mercy here.  I am very excited.

 

On being quiet

Well, today was my final* meeting for clinic.  There were a GREAT! NUMBER! OF THINGS! that sucked about clinic, but to be fair, at some point I just got fed up and threw up my hands instead of continuing to try.  Whether I would have made anything better, or done any good, for me or the case, is unknown; it was a decision I made, balancing what I would get out of it versus what I would need to put into it, and how other things that I am more committed to would be affected.  Is the entire thing a shame, the clinic and my actions?  Yeah, totally, and I take responsibility for my actions (or, uh, lack thereof - I think my only affirmative action was being cranky a lot).  At the same time, I don't think I necessarily did that balancing test incorrectly.  So, you know.

ANYWAY, what was interesting about my final reflection meeting with my supervisor was this: she tried to call me out on being too quiet.  She wondered if maybe I had just decided to not try during meetings.  I was surprised when she brought this up, and confused for a second, because I make a point of being very present in everything I do no matter how much I am annoyed, and I said, "Wait, no, I wasn't being quiet.  I was listening."

It has never ceased to amaze me how strongly teachers correlate learning with actions they can see.  This is why participation grades irk me - I mean, yeah, you want everyone to add to the discussion, and different points of view, whatever, I get it, but sometimes, it furthers MY learning a lot more if I don't try to come up with anything to say.  Sometimes my learning is best facilitated by staying quiet and listening and then processing it all in my head.  The classes that I had the most to learn from, throughout my life, are the ones I have been the most silent in.  And the ones that have offered the least knowledge are the ones in which I will raise my hand the most.

This makes perfect sense to me.  I don't know why it isn't obvious to all teachers.  If I have a lot of shit to say, it's either because I am an opinionated ass who feels the need to get her two cents in all the time (HATE. THESE. FUCKERS), or I already know a great deal about the topic, or both, but I am never just the former.  If I know a great deal about the topic, then I will feel like what I have to say is worthwhile and beneficial to everyone, and I'll share it.  I am not one of those people so enamored with her own voice.

Yes, I know I am mouthy, and I am very opinionated and very strong-willed, and I fight.  But I actually don't speak unless I have something thoughtful to say.  I don't get into discussions unless I know what I am talking about.  I know some people don't have a filter between their brains and their mouths,  but I have a filter and it is DENSE.  I say, "I don't know" if I don't.  I don't feel the need to chime in.  I don't feel compelled to tell people the inner workings of my thought process, unless I think it is useful and productive.  I think my quiet ends up being surprising to people who assume that I am mouthy all the time, but I'm just not.  If I think I just need to listen, I shut the fuck up, and I listen.  And I process.  And I think.  And then if I feel I have something to say, I will say it.  But if I am on unfamiliar ground, I am not going to get busy telling everyone my impressions on the landscape - I'm going to watch how everyone else navigates the terrain so I can decide how best to navigate it, too.

I really am quite the watcher.  I like learning from watching people model things.  If it were up to me, I would watch ten different people solve the same problem ten different ways, decide which pieces of which performances I liked, and then cobble them together to make my own way of solving the problem.  And that's how to best teach kids, actually: you model, so they know one way to do it, and what the end product is supposed to look like, and then you give them a new problem for them to puzzle out themselves.  They'll find their own ways of solving it, and then you have the students share with each other all the cool, different methods they all used to solve it, and everyone learns a lot, the end.  Whereas in law school, they like to throw you into the sea with the sharks after giving you the direction to go find a pearl, but they have not told you: 1. what a pearl is; 2. what it looks like; 3. that it grows in oysters; 4. what an oyster is; 5. that oysters are found on the ocean floor; and 6. also, you might need some scuba gear to get down there.  So there is a lot of thrashing and swimming around in circles and you get bit in the legs several times and you . . . I want to say, "hit your head against the wall repeatedly until your forehead just throbs," but I have been using this sea metaphor, and I have backed myself into a corner with that, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

SO YES.  Basically, I think it's sad how much listening is NOT emphasized.  I mean, I was on a litigation team with a lot of different lawyers who had a lot of different experiences and did things a lot of different ways.  OF COURSE I LISTENED.  I learned far more that way.  And the interesting foil here is one of the other law students on our team (NOT MY PARTNER, she is the best person on earth) felt the need to speak ALL THE TIME.  No filter in her head, no sirree, she'd just talk over people and through people she felt so compelled to mouth shit.  But I never thought she had that much of value to add.  And I never heard her say anything that was wise.  Much that was foolish, and without any common sense, but nothing very thoughtful or helpful.  My supervisor did make a point of noting how thoughtful I am.  Which, well, YEAH, because I spend way more time observing and processing than just verbally shitting on everything, so of course I am.

So, yeah, I was a little surprised this afternoon at being called out for just listening.  I can understand what my supervisor meant, and what she was going for, and why she would have thought what she did; like I said, I do think it's an easy mistake to make with me.  I am quite the force, and when I go silent, I imagine people assume something is wrong, or I have turned off.  But my silence goes hand-in-hand with the thing I was praised for today: I am very thoughtful.  Thinking takes a still tongue.  I am generally not foolish or quick to speak or frivolous with my words.  I listen.  I think it is so desperately important, listening.  I wish there was way more listening in the world.  And I wish people valued it and nurtured it, instead of assuming that in our ever-louder and increasingly shouty, insistent public universe, that silence and listening are failures of some kind, rather than the virtues they are.   



*HAHAHAHA, just kidding, second-to-last, I still have one more.  Clinic: the hell that never ends.

OH MY GOD PEOPLE

1. My roommate on the phone, verbatim:

Hey, so [name] is dating this Middle Eastern guy.  Is there anyway you can run a police check on him? . . .  Oh, really?  You can't? That's a shame.  . . . I don't know, we're all really worried.  . . . Because, like, you know, he's some random Middle Eastern guy. . . . and she has money . . . Well, he's Egyptian.  No, wait, that's not right, he's not Egyptian, he's Muslim.  Yeah, he's Muslim.

2. My friend E. gets an email from online dating:

 hello How are you??? YOu know what? Most people like to watch the Olympics, because they only happen once every 4 years, but I'd rather talk to you cause the chance of meeting someone so special only happens once in a lifetime. :)

3. WHAT.  Courtesy of these people.

4. I give up on humanity.