The Furious Spinner

Well, the slacker days lasted for about four hours, and then I got a phone call to go to Linda's. The thing is: life goes on even when we decide to slack. But I appreciate your support of my desire to slack. Now I'm waiting for another phone call, and then I'm off to Linda's again.

But I'll tell ya, I'm crankier than a two-dollar whore. Yes, that's my measurement. Maybe cranky is the wrong word. I'm furious and frustrated and mad as hell. As I was driving to Linda's yesterday, I heard on the radio that two women had been murdered on a hiking trail in the Cascades: a mother and a daughter. All I could think and feel was, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" I hike by myself all the time. Sometimes I'm nervous; sometimes I'm terrified. But I'm always aware that some fuck could be wandering around looking for an opportunity to murder me. My odds of being murdered, my dear husband says, are greater than winning the lottery. Yet one of my best friends won the lottery, and one of my classmates in high school was murdered. In fact, I've known three people who have been murdered. Two of those people were men killed in bar fights, so you figure those kinds of situations you can avoid. Being a woman isn't a situation I can avoid.

I want the world to be a different place.

I met Mario for his break, and we walked around town.

"I think I want a gun," I said.

"A gun?"

"Yeah, I'll wear it on the trail," I said, "and have it in the car."

"A gun is not going to make you safer," he said.

We've had conversations like this before. I want to be talked out of getting a gun, but I also know he cannot understand how vulnerable I sometimes feel. So, frankly, he can't win.

"You don't understand what's it's like," I said. "I'm tired of being a fucking target. I want to be able to protect myself."

"Statistically guns don't make you safer," he said. "Where would you have it when you were on the trail?"

"I'd put it in my back," I said, showing him where I'd put it in my slacks.

"So someone could come up behind you and take it and use it against you," he said.

"Okay, I'd have a holster," I said. "And have the gun here, on my right side. Someone comes up to me and I pull out the gun and kill him. Or shoot him in the legs."

Mario put his arm across my shoulders. "You've watched too many movies and TV shows," he said. "They'd probably use the gun against you."

"Those murdered women didn't have guns," I said. I sighed. "I want the world to be a different place."

When I got home, I discovered that the two women had been shot. Ugh.

Mario asked one of the women he works with if she had any guns.

"Oh yeah," she said. "I have several."

"Do you take them on the trail with you?"

"No," she said. "I don't walk the trails alone."

"Why not?"

"It's too dangerous," she said. "Especially for a woman alone, and it pisses me off."

Bleck.

And there's more.

Of course you all know the Mid-East has blown up. And the thing that really sent me over the edge was learning that the House is trying to pass a law that would prevent States from enforcing strict pesticide-safety laws. I read stuff like this and I think people have just got to be insane to still believe the Republicans and this administration care about them at all. Real Republicans should be outraged that a GOP-controlled Congress wants to WEAKEN the powers of the states.

One of Linda's closest friends is driving over from Idaho to visit her today. She is dirt-poor. Not even dirt-poor. Poorer. She's been married many times. Yet she's a very conservative christian Repulsican. Makes me shudder to think about it. She doesn't seem to realize these people are working for their corporate supporters and not for her or anyone like her.

Okay. Done with the screaming at least for the moment. I can't tell you the things I'm trying to get arranged today. No really. I can't tell you. Maybe some day. Let's just say it ain't easy and it ain't fun.

I'm not complaining. I'm just not flowing with the go today. This is a misogynist world we live in. These murderious boys and men who were raised and nourished on the violent teat that is America are now being exported to other countries where they rape and murder. (Not that the Muslim world is free of misogyny, mind you.) I am so disgusted. I'm feeling Boudica rising up in me again. Where's my fucking sword? I want to cut some heads off...

In a loving and nurturing way.

No, not really in a loving or nurturing way.

But for you all, I'll send a blessing.

May the love of the moon and the stars be upon you.

Until I get my mind right...

May You Spin in Beauty! 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.