I woke up Saturday morning feeling like I was on a boat in rough waters. I literally couldn’t walk in a straight line. And I’ve been feeling that way in varying degrees since, although I do have antibiotics now to (hopefully) heal whatever is going wrong with my inner ear.
The cause is unknown. It could be related to the very mild cold I had two weeks ago. It could be for no reason at all.
My life, though, has been rather dizzying, so I suppose the timing is apt.
I went through two days of Restorative Practice training at work last week, which was physically and emotionally draining while motivating and energizing.
My writing partner’s manager got back to us about our television pilot and loved it; he wants to sell it right away. Only there’s a writer’s strike looming and no one is buying anything right now.
Nearly every writer I know is at AWP this week in Seattle, and I’m so incredibly jealous, and yet when I look at the sheer number of people and lit journals and panels and agents, I’m also glad I’m not there to suffer the overwhelming anxiety.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
The boat is rocking, and I hope to navigate to some calmer waters soon.
Someone left behind their butterfly headband, giving this crane (?) statue an extra touch of flair.
An essay of mine came out this week in New Ohio Review’s Issue 32. They devoted a section of this issue to Reproductive Rights in Literature. When I saw the call for literary criticism regarding abortions, my mind straight to Ayelet Waldman’s essay “Rocketship,” a piece I read as a young mother that has stayed with me since. I’m so happy NOR decided to include me in this collection.
We should not give a mother a car and tell her to lift it—it is too heavy. And yet, the world believes that if her baby is under the car, a mother is capable of lifting it. If she isn’t capable, then she is a bad mother. Mothers are discredited for anything short of superhero strength. Waldman’s essay is so important because it shows just how absurd an expectation that is. She could not be a superhero. Neither can I.
- Me
The family sat down and colored unicorn pictures last night. Can you guess which one is mine, which one is my 6-year-old’s, and which is my husband’s?
I stumbled upon this essay by Cammy Pedroja about fat suits in Hollywood. I clicked on it because I saw Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker and wondered why it’s a problem to transform someone to look like the person they are representing. Thanks to Cammy, I totally get it now.
Even when not played for straight-up comedy, fat suits perpetuate an othering idea of fat bodies, depicting fatness as unnatural and something that can be put on or taken off at will. And as we become more sophisticated as modern film audiences, we tend not to love it when people are cast as a member of a minority or marginalized group they’re not actually a part of.
- Cammy Pedroja
What I’m Watching:
Jerry and Marge Go Large, starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, was an absolutely adorable telling of a real Michigan couple who played the lottery. The only thing that could have made it better was if it had been actually filmed in Michigan (damn you, Snyder, for ending our film incentives program).
What I’m Thinking About:
In my local news this week, the headline “A Woman With Chronic Premenstrual Syndrome is Believed to Have Killed 189 People” popped up. I’m not sure where this article originated from; the woman killed people all over the country, so many states could claim the story as theirs, but the specific writer of this article seems unknown. What I find most disturbing about this article is how there is no discussion of what PMDD is. They only thing they talk about is how “scary” this woman is. No surprise, this news story had a worse headline elsewhere: “Woman Kills 189 People, Blames Her Period,” putting more social shame on menstruation. The article suggests that the accused may live out her remaining days in a psychiatric hospital, which doesn’t make sense to me. This is clearly a medical issue. When will women’s health finally get the research and attention it deserves? Lives are at stake here.
Answer key to the unicorn picture: from left to right, mine, my daughter’s, and my husband’s.
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