Tag Archives: rage

can we have delight even when we’re so rightfully angry?

greybrown sandy beach and a brown dog in a red coat with her white paws pressed to a ball  - over the beach, a blue and pink sunrise sky

The puppy doesn’t care how pretty the sunrise is – she has her ball

CN: talk about rage and reasons to be enraged and also some not-rageful sex talk toward the end

Good morning, good morning. The puppy got me up, accidentally, at 2:30 or so, and I haven’t been able to fall back to sleep since — so we came out through the rain (the puppy walking close to me to stay under the umbrella) to the little house and have the candles lit and she is comfortable tucked in her chair under one of the blankets that I bought at Ikea when I was furnishing the office I had in Oakland for a little while and the tea kettle is on and the space heater is churning at my feet and we have an astonishingly perfect morning place. The ocean is so loud I could hear it from the bed, which is rare — it’s been warm the last couple of days, but windy, and there’s clearly a storm coming or influencing us from somewhere. 

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#metoo #havewesaiditenoughnow? #doyoubelieveus?

stencil graffiti of a women's symbol with a fist in the center of the circle, surrounded by the words, Good morning. No birds outside yet this morning, just BART and smoke.

I open the notebook, write for a few minutes, then turn to the laptop. Here’s the place that wants me to spin and groove.

If only I could find a way to write about every single sex assault story. I could be that person, that journalist, that commentator. Right? You’re supposed to become an expert in your niche, that’s what all the business coaches say. And so I try. I search for “sexual violence.” If there’s a worse mistake, it’s just searching for “woman” when looking for images to include with the blog post (and I say to myself, you should know better, Jen, like somehow I’m to blame for the fact that Google has algorithmed pictures from porn shoots and autopsies into the results, has tagged those as, simply, “woman.”)

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in which jen loses her sh*t

Painted on a white wall, graffiti of a person wearing a tank top and mask and holding a bat, under and next to the words: It’s all I can do this morning to keep myself together.

I make black tea for the day, because I’m out of my loose green; Irish breakfast, to go with the soda bread I made last night. All I can do these days is eat. That’s a thing I’m good at: the decisions don’t ruin my life, and I don’t get paralyzed trying to figure out what to eat next. The eating helps me feel just bad enough about myself, but also kills the other awful feelings, the anxiety, the triggeredness.

My editor tells me she wants me to write about this Harvey Weinstein thing. Write about the latest story of a sexual predator that everyone is surprised about. Wait, the guy who promoted Hunting Ground is a sexual super-predator? Are we supposed to act shocked, we who live our lives in the aftermath of manhandling by people like these? Are we supposed to believe all the shock and dismay from various high-powered folks in the entertainment industry? What kind of story can I write about this?

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