What I Will Do Today

Today I will work on my novel. I will string words together in service to a story and character that grabbed hold of me four years ago and still won’t let go. A story of, in its essence, a clear-eyed woman’s ascent into power from nothing, fueled by her wit, grit, and resolve.

Today I will go to my wood shop. I will take salvage and scrap, the used-up, cast-off pieces, and make them into something useful and beautiful, through the work of my hands and the labor of my heart and mind.

Today I will go to the gym. I will challenge and refine my imperfect body, work it to exhaustion, that it might become stronger and healthier for the work that lies ahead.

Today I will read a book. I will fall into another world, another mind, another way of seeing and experiencing, that my own world, my own mind, my own way of seeing and experiencing will become larger, more encompassing, more compassionate and clear.

Today I will be kind to every person I meet. I will willfully and purposefully manifest what is best in me, and offer it freely to all I encounter. I will do my best to be the change I want to see in the world, to let the better angels of my nature take flight.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow, I will march. But today I will do those things that give my life meaning. I will ground myself in them, to give me strength and fuel my resolve for the long, dark road ahead.

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On: Taking Action in the Face of Despair

Depending on how well you know me, you may or may not know that I suffer from depression, and have for most of my conscious life. Most of the time it presents as a sort of miasma in which everything seems pointless, or requires too much effort, or is just overwhelming enough to keep my brain turning in circles, which feeds the miasma because I use all my energy being anxious about how I’m not doing all the things instead of doing all or even some of the things.

At its worst, the despair is acute enough that I understand why people might take their own lives to make it go away, even if they know consciously that it will go away, because it has before. And before you freak out, no, I am not declaring myself a suicide risk, nor need you concern yourself overmuch about my condition, which I’ve been living with and learning to manage for my whole conscious life.

No, my purpose here is to share some of the strategies I use to move forward and accomplish things. Because let’s face it, there’s a lot of despair going around right now thanks to the election and the political situation in these United States, and if we’re going to make it better, we’re going to have to figure out how to move forward and accomplish things in the face of the depression and despair that situation engenders.

Some of what I’m going to say will seem contradictory, even paradoxical. This is partly due to the welter of contradictions-in-tension that makes up who I am. But mostly it has to do with the fact that you need different tools for different jobs (and the wisdom/know-how to pick the right one).

So, let’s jump right to the first contradiction: self-care and abnegation of self. Continue reading “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On: Taking Action in the Face of Despair” →

On This Idea That Things Have to Get Worse Before We Can Make Them Better

Short on time, so I’m going to keep this quick and dirty.

The notion that if things only get bad enough that suddenly the progressive agenda will become more widely appealing (and thus easy to implement) is a fucking canard. Ain’t gonna happen, no way no how.

If you have to destroy the village to save it, you didn’t save it.

First off, we tried it back in 2000. Maybe you forgot, or weren’t alive, or weren’t old enough to be paying attention, but things were going pretty fucking well at the end of the ’90s. The economy was chugging along pretty well, and there was plenty to go around. Yeah, not everyone was doing great, but there was a lot of cause for optimism. We hadn’t been in a shooting war in decades. Hell, our worst threat was a bunch of goat-fuckers in camps in Afghanistan who wanted to hurt us but mostly weren’t pulling if off.

Was it the best of all possible worlds? No. But things were good and getting better. There was a solid foundation to build further progress on. Hell, it seemed eminently reasonable to vote for Ralph Nader, if only to elevate the Green Party to minor party status and get it some federal funding to build a roots-up political organization that could do some good in the world. I, myself, voted, donated to, and volunteered for Ralph.

Then Bush won, and shit went south pretty much right away.

Not one but two massive tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy. 9/11, which happened at least in part because Bush et al took their eyes off the aforementioned goat-fuckers. Then the Iraq War. Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib. CIA black sites. Katrina. Two Supreme Court Justices — including a new Chief Justice — who have contributed to decisions like Citizens United, and Shelby County. Oh, and let’s not forget the US Attorney scandal, in which they tried to fire ostensibly independent LEOs for not prosecuting enough Democrats or, God forbid, prosecuting Republicans. And, of course, the financial deregulation that gave us the Great Recession, which continues to fuck the economy to this day despite the best efforts of the Obama Administration.

We lost a *lot* of ground towards the progressive utopia we all want to see brought about, thanks at least in part to a solid chunk of the population that thought “If it gets bad enough, people will see the foolishness of conservative/Republican governance, and turn, as they must, to the other side.”

I mean, seriously, if you’re worried about, say climate change — and if you aren’t, you’re a fool or at least fooling yourself — just think for a moment what eight or even four years with the guy who made An Inconvenient Truth in the White House might have done to make progress on fighting or at least managing it.

Then we got Obama, who’s done a pretty good job turning things around, but could have done so much more if liberals, progressives, and generally sane people hadn’t sat out the 2010 Census Year Mid-term elections in such big numbers, allowing the Republicans and their Tea Party bomb-throwers to gerrymander a damn near unsinkable House Majority for a whole fucking decade.

So here we are now. Things are turning around. Yes, it could be faster. Yes, the system’s corrupt. But again, we’ve made some real progress. Laid a foundation for more. We’ve got a Democratic candidate in Hillary Clinton who ought to be a progressive dream candidate. Not only a woman — and holla for breaking that glass ceiling — but one running on the most progressive platform in the history of ever. Even if her opponent wasn’t a racist, sexist, xenophobic, fascist idiot narcissist in the pocket of the Russians who genuinely doesn’t understand why we don’t use the nuclear weapons we have or any other goddamn thing, anyone who even remotely identifies as liberal or progressive ought to be jumping for joy at the prospect of the most qualified and capable candidate for the highest office in the land in the history of the goddamned Republic.

But, again, we’ve got a bunch of people who just can’t bring themselves to pull the lever for her, and who think, once again, that if we let the racist, sexist, xenophobic, fascist idiot narcissist in the pocket of the Russians win that things will finally get so bad the Glorious Progressive Revolution will come of its own accord.

The problem, aside from the damage done and the many, many steps backward that will entail, is that human nature doesn’t work that way. A progressive society is contingent on prosperity. When people ain’t got shit, they start looking out for them and theirs, and fuck everybody else. They cling to their guns and their religion and their tribe harder than ever, because if there ain’t enough to go around then they’ll make damn sure they and theirs get what they need first, and the rest can go hang.

Look. I get it. There’s a lot to object to in the way our country is run. But if the choice is between an imperfect status quo and the goddamned apocalypse, then that shouldn’t be a fucking choice at all. If you have enough privilege to ride out the serial disaster that would be a Trump administration, bully for you. But there’s a whole fuckload of people who don’t, and way way way too many of them stand to get hurt while you wait for the revolution you haven’t really thought through to ripen.

You want progress? You want change? Then not only do you have to vote for Hillary Clinton (hold your nose or no, I don’t really give a fuck). You have to vote Democrat all the way down the ballot. You know why shit’s so dysfunctional? Because the goddamned Republicans put party before country, and have sabotaged and vandalized and obstructed every fucking thing that might make things better. They have to, because their whole thing is that government can’t work and is never the solution and if you elect them they’ll prove it to you, as they fucking have for decades now. The Democrats may be imperfect and their tent’s big enough that they’re as centrist as they are liberal, but at least they want to keep the fucking lights on.

It’s not sexy, I know. But if you care about making the world a better place by enacting a progressive agenda, then you have to build on the progress we’ve already made.

The WIP’s Journey

So about four years ago I had a fun idea for a short story. It was a fantasy story, which was a little off the beaten path for me at the time. By which I mean I didn’t write fantasy, had no aspirations to write fantasy, and though I grew up reading it and still do and really dig the new directions people are taking it in these days, I was much more interested in what I termed ‘near-future speculative fiction with emergent magic realist elements.’

But this fun little idea wanted written, and I thought, what the hell, let’s see where it goes.

So, a little background before I tell you what the idea was. Like many nerds, I spent a good chunk of the ‘80s playing Dungeons & Dragons. Outside every dungeon there’s a tavern, where the players go before the adventure to learn some important backstory and play at a last huzzah before the adventure, because some of the party might not come back. At the tavern, there’s wenches, and more often than not their job is not only to bring food and drink but to absorb sexual harassment. Not unlike far too many of their counterparts in the real world. Men will be boys, after all.

The tavern wench is the most non-player-y non-player character there is. Seriously, there’s not even a TVTropes page. At least there wasn’t last time I looked.

So who are these women, I asked, and three women answered. There was Marinie, the tavern-keep, an aging beauty with a bastard son and a jaundiced view of the the world. There was Perse, who was shy and quiet and didn’t want to talk about her past, or much of anything, really, and not because she’s afraid, either.

And then there was Brenaea, working to put herself through magic school. She had the most to say of all of them, and while the other two pretty much are who they are, she was the one still in the process of becoming who she would be. It was clear pretty quickly that this was her story.

So I had some characters. The setting was obvious. The tavern’s near a dungeon. The dungeon has a dragon. There’s a magic school there, too. Sure, it’s chock-full of tropes, but it was enough for a short story, right? And obviously the story was how do I get these three into and through the dungeon to save the day?

Easy. First I needed some even tropier adventurers to come along and mess everything up by waking the sleeping dragon (thanks, JRR). The last dying one returns, bearing the McGuffin, and it’s up to the wenches to save the day. How do they make it through the dungeon? Well, Marinie’s been working the bar and talking with survivors for years now, and she’s managed to put together a map. Perse’s got mad skillz, because of course she does. And Brenaea, well she’s the one with the education to tie it all together. And the dragon, well, the dragon turns out to be a little different from what the classics might lead you to expect.

Hm. That’s a lot to pack into thirty pages. Maybe it’s a novellette. Or a novella. Oh, shit, I am writing a novel, Continue reading “The WIP’s Journey” →

Confession

[Trigger Warning for Survivors of Sexual Assault]

I am twelve or thirteen. There are five of us and one of her. She hasn’t lived in the neighborhood long. The others hold her down, laughing. One pries her legs open. I know what’s happening is wrong, but I don’t say anything. I grope her breast, the first one I have ever touched. I stand up and back away. Thankfully, it’s enough, and we let her up. I never tell anyone.

I am eighteen. I’ve gone out on a couple of dates with a girl whose friend just broke up with me. We’ve made out once or twice. One night in the middle of the night I go over to her house. The door is unlocked, and I sneak into her room. We have sex. After, I ask if we can do it again, and she says no. I leave. It’s not until a few years later I realize I probably raped her. I don’t tell anyone til I’m in my forties.

I am twenty-one. I’m having consensual sex. She freezes up, asks me to stop. I finish. I never tell anyone.

This list of my transgressions is hardly exhaustive. I can only hope it’s the worst I have done. In two of three cases, I’ve never told anyone until now. I didn’t want people to know. More than that, I didn’t want those things to have happened.

But they did happen. I did those things. And if it’s taken this long for me to human up and acknowledge them, well, that’s on me, too.

I could make excuses. I was young, dumb, and full of cum. I didn’t know any better. I came of age in the ’80s, when rape culture was just culture. Men were supposed to want sex, and anything shy of actual or threatened violence was on the table for getting it, be it deception, cajoling, or just getting her drunk enough to let you take her panties off and do what you wanted. I was a product of my environment.

Those excuses are bullshit. Basic human decency isn’t hard to grasp once you admit to yourself that other people are people.

I am sorry for the things I did. I apologize to the people I did them to. But I don’t presume to ask forgiveness. Some stains can’t be washed out. Just like some wounds never heal.

The idea of hitting publish scares the absolute shit out of me. People I don’t know are going to judge me. Worse, people I do know will, too.

But after reading as much of this as I could stomach, my conscience compels me to come clean and own up to the things I have done. Somebody has to go first.

I may not be a good person. But I can at least try and do the right thing. If we, as men, are going to do something about rape culture, we’ve got to look inside as well as out. You can’t fight something you’re not willing to face.