THE BATHTUB IS REAL

I have almost stopped talking altogether. For the last twenty-four hours I haven't uttered a word.I am reminded of my maternal grandfather who once decided to become mute because he could no longer tolerate the fights he had with his wife.

My grandfather was a tall, handsome man with very fine hands. When I was nine years old, I went to visit him. One morning I woke up at dawn, as he did, and I asked him to talk to me.He took me for a walk along a deserted railway line and talked for three hours straight. He fed me mangoes and then talked some more. He told me how he had driven buses all his life; how much he loved women; how he played cards for money. He told me I was good at making people talk, he said I should become a journalist.

I need to call Kat. I know she's been worried. I need to tell her I'm okay...and I will in a little while. I've been sitting in front of the T.V. all night and I've watched five films on HBO so far...I must look like a lunatic, lying in my beach chair staring at the screen,but I suppose that doesn't matter. The whole time I'm thinking about him..

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. The essential is invisible to the eye. So says the fox to the little prince in Antoine De Saint Exupery's classic tale. I bought the book not long ago at borders...reading always cheers my mood...I find most of my comfort in the words of my favorite authors...which is always where I've found my comfort in the past...

I feel like a dam about to be overwhelmed by the flood of tears I've been holding back. To steel myself, I dredge my mind for helpful memories. I flash back on a book I loved as a teenager, The Lonliness Of The Long-Distance Runner, about a race of endurance and the endless interior monologue that keeps the runner going..

Our individual lives are like waves produced from the great ocean of the universe. The emergence of a wave is life, and it's abatement is death. The rhythm repeats eternally. ok. My monologue has lasted long enough....to leave on a positive note...great news..Kat is having a boy..We went out and split a nonalcholic beer to celebrate...

WHISKEY AND CIGGARETTES

I was dancing when I first noticed my former paramour. He was standing alone, a glass of whiskey in his hand, surrounded by a joyful crowd. He watched my friend and me, abosorbed in our dance. He was facinated by our complicity.

He looked to me like an elegant extrterrestrial casting a delighted but somewhat perplexed glance at the earthly specimens. His body, bent slightly forward, as if he wanted to give us something, or perhaps catch something we might have.

Leaning against the wall, we discussed how people who leave their homeland also leave their frame of reference. And other global topics..He was an amusing mystery to me, and I entertained a desire to see him again..two weeks later he showed up on my doorsteps to bring me a book he thought I should read, shah oF shah's, by the polish journalist RYSZARD Kapuscinski, about the last shah of Iran and the events leading up to the 1977 Islamic revolution.

When he left I curled up with the book, and I became entranced. I had never read such orginal and vivid free-flowing journalism. That sonny so loved this book-and thought I would love it, too.-made me think. God, we really do have something in common. What it was I couldn't yet see. But it was strong..

From the very beginning of our relationship we wrote handwritten letters. And after I read the book..I reciprocated with a letter. I told him about the pope's visit to cuba, I wrote to him about the extradionary cost of meat in cuba, I discussed the rare gift Cubans have for savoring the present in spite of everything.(I had been reading a book on cuba.) I also told him I would like to see him again.

And so, We made a date!!

The following morning, at 8 o'clock, my door swung open to recieve sonny, He greeted me with a giant smile, then ran straight to the kitchen, where he extracted a bag of half dozen eggs, a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, onions, a pair of red peppers, and spanish blood oranges. Hovering over the stove, Sonny was like a conducter directing a symphony. His hair stuck straight up from the effort and the heat. Still grinning, he handed me a plate, upon which he lay his steaming masterpiece. "here it is," he announced with a flourish of unbounded pride. My kitchen was in a state of chaos. Speechless, until then. I burst out laughing.

Early in our relationship, Sonny decided it was his duty to provide me the precious black nectar. He knew how much a good cup of coffee improved my mood. I discovered sonny love for keeping lists, he wrote all kinds of lists..like cool things to like about bombay India, Things to like about Germans..And so one day I discovered he had a list on me..My pride was singed. Did he need to be reminded what I was about? But he explained that if he kept adding to the list by the time we grew old, it would become a epic ode to the woman he loved..

I'm not entirely sure why I'm thinking much less writing about all this..maybe it's time for a little self reflection..but the rest of the story is my business not the New York Post's....!!!!

WHEN I MEET JESUS!!!

What is that Walt Whitman quote...about when you die leaving a fertile patch of grass and a happy child..

I hope that when me and jesus have that date that I'll be dignified. I'd like to have some children and a good garden, and I'd like to grow really great hybrid roses and have dogs and cats..and get victoria magazine in the mail on a consistant basis..and have a goddamn nice house...

And I hope as I lay dying that all my loves pass across my eyes..and I hope that I'm surrounded by books..lots and lots of books...that which I'm sacred of...

If this occurs I think I can go quietly into that good night!

THE JOY OF PANTS!!!

I wear pants all the time. I mean, I almost always wear pants..I've gotten easier to be around, although my real marker for how angry I am is whether I'm wearing combat boots. I've been trying not to wear them at all, but I wore them yesterday and I swear it only made my anger worse..

I have a friend that recently commented to me, that she quit smoking and put on ten pounds so she said she's "had" to wear pants. Because none of her pants fit anymore..Actually. this entire topic pisses me off..It's hugely irritating issue in my world. Most of what is beautiful is dictated TO me. I get bombarded with that fucking waif and before that, junkies, and before that, skinny girls with breast jobs, and so on, and then I'm surprised I'm so angry.

So where was I? Talking about pants..Well, the good news is that it is much cooler with boss types to wear them to work than it ever used to be. Thanks to Katherine Hepburn,among other steely babes..

When I was a kid I climbed trees and I raced my bike with the other kids around the dirt track down the street and I had a fort and I played sports. And I got punched in the face and I got a bloody nose and I wiped out on my bike. And I can't imagine doing any of that shit with a skirt on, nor would I have wanted to.

I guess what it comes down to is that I love clothes that carry power. As my friend alisha said to me, "If they wouldn't let us wear pants for so long, there must be something really powerful and important about them." Wearing pants is definitely powerful in my mind. As a kid, I wore pants in order to do everything all the other kids in my neighborhood were doing, And today, I wear pants with my beloved army boots and it makes me feel powerful and safe and strong. I can stomp around listening to bands of hard women on my ipod and nobody gives me shit!!!

WAYWARD WARDEN'S WICKED WAR AGAINST WOMANHOOD

I wanted to be tough and I didn't want tits..I first resented my girlhood at age 11 when I became informed of " The Curse" that I would eventually have to deal with..I remember my mother informing me of this grim event outside of my public high school outlined by a clear, sunny day. My mother said it would be "our secret".

She said there would be blood and I should not be afraid. She said this could happen soon because the women on her side of the family were often early bloomers. She said there might be some pain called "cramps." I was terrified. I didn't understand why this would happen to me or why all women were "cursed."

My mother said it was a " woman's curse" because Eve ate the apple. In sunday school I was told it was "our sin" because some woman I had never met was dumb enough to share her forbidden fruit with some guy who obviously didn't appreciate it.

The conclusive result of this historical event caused "us" to be jettisoned promptly from the safe confines of the boring painless paradise called Eden. Hence the rotten apple that spoiled the bunch. I couldn't see how this treatment was fair or why God hated all women because of a fucking piece of produce. It was just an apple. Why didn't he want them to eat it?

What I especially could not comprehend was that he would still be pissed off about it and take it out on me. What a grudgefuck. How perplexing. At eleven, standing in the sunlight, I knew I would be screwed. I would not be one of the chosen. I would not be ordained the new and improved Virgin Mary. I was marked like a casino deck and ready to be dealt.

My mother told me when I got my period that I was to tell no one except her. I was forbidden to bring up the subject if men or boys were present. The reason she gave for this was that the period was an extremely private thing. To give it that certain neurotic paranoid afraid-of-your-own-sexuality flair she gave it a code name. I felt like an agent of espionage. The code name was Rosy. In this way I could communicate with my mother if others, especially males, were present. She said I should say something like " Rosy came to visit me today and boy was she a pain!" Even at my tender age I knew she was out of her mind. This info just did not compute.

When I was twelve I was in a gang of sorts with three other girls with views similar to my own(or so I thought at the time). My nickname was fingers #14. They called me this since I was an expert shoplifter(a very short lived career.) among other things I did well with my fingers. We sought out trouble whenever and wherever possible. We acted like assholes a good amount of time..part of growing up girl...

Now even though my cramps hurt more than having my arm torn open to the muscle I'm proud to be a woman. I would never turn my tits and cunt in for anything or anybody. Even if some green genie appeared before me offering to turn me into a man..I would plainly refuse. Only a fucking crazy loon would trade forty-five minute orgasms for a higher-paying job.

MOMMY DEAREST

I should begin by admitting that this piece would read very differently if I were not thirty, single, and child-free. I'm obsessed, you see, and it's not about the lack of a soul mate, but rather, the absence of a teeny little playmate. I'm virtually a cliche-ohhh, her biological time clock is in overdrive, buyer beware! afraid I'll miss the boat.

The steady tick tock of my internal metronome instills the fear, rather than the Mystiqueen sense of opression it created for ye olde second waver. Wanting a baby is no longer considered a violation of feminist doctrine, but a show of feminist pride. Plus, the wonders of science have turned pregnancy into a booming business, giving my generation of mama-bes choices galore. All of this has got me thinking- about how far the notion of motherhood has come in the last century, about my dear mom, and of course, my own situation: when I will(or will I) be jumping on the baby bandwagon.

It's only recently that I have been able ro appreciate the pride my mother has in her lifework of being my mom. I'm facinated by how she managed to do it. My mother didn't have it easy, and yet, she made it feel effortless. We speak everyday and it's always the same conversation: ang, when you gonna have a baby? It's her thing, what can I do? She's my mom and she worries about me.

I regret any and every harsh word I've had with her, of course, that's kind of thing that comes with maturity. With looking forward, with wanting my own babies. I wonder what will be: Will I have children, will she be alive to see it? Every moment I have with my mom is precious to me, she's my mommie dearest, the woman I am closet to in body, mind, and heart. She is the woman I owe my life to, and who I will spend the rest of my life keeping safe and protected, as she once kept me. She is my number one gal.

BABES IN BOYLAND!!

I'm here to say to the girls of our nation: ASK NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR CUNT,BUT ASK WHAT YOUR CUNT CAN DO FOR YOU!

Here ye, Hear me. It's time for your brief bustline of our feminine herstory. Once upon a time(actually,1792). Somewhere in England, Mary Wollstonecraft read The Rights Of Man, written by her buddy Thomas Paine and went, "What the fuck?". In response, Mother Mary wrote her version of the chick manifesto called A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, where she stated:

If woman be allowed to have an immortal soul, she must have, as the employment of life, and understanding to improve, and when she is incited by present gratification to forget her grand destination, nature is counteracted, or she was born only to procreate and rot. Yet if love be the supreme good, let woman only be educated to inspire it, and let every charm be polished to intoxicate the senses; but if they be moral beings, let them have a chance to become intelligent; and let love to man only be part of the glowing flame of universal love.

An instant best-seller it was not, but A vindication of the rights of woman was one of the first bricks in the foundation of feminisim. Ms. Mary blew the shofar for women's equality, for her right to work and to an education. In those days women were
meant to be seen not heard.

Naturally, all this activity in girlville made men nervous,and in many cases prompted them to ridicule, sneer, and jeer. The good gentlemen folk of a Philadelphia paper were so moved that they declared:

" A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten thousand men and a mother is next to god, all powerful..the ladies of philadelphia therefore, under the influence of the most serious sober second thoughts, are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles Virgins and mothers and not as Women."

Women were to remain subservient, cute, and mute.
We're at a point in time where we have the guts and the means to make choices, whether they are controversial or not. We're not afraid to analyze, dissect, and debate the minutiae of our love lives, our economic situation, nothing is too trivial or too political.

We've watched, listened, and learned. Now we do,do,do. We're bratty, we're angry, we're kool. There's room on our plates for all our goals, whatever they may be. Just take a ringside seat and witness the thrilla in Girlvilla:

As a wise woman once said; " If men could mensturate, Oh what a world this would be."

Just to leave this on a positive note: cause this is not a anti-man essay it's a pro-girl essay...but a word on boys...there are some amazing pro-girl guys out there, boys who are smarter than the average joe..these boys were typically raised by women..and they watched as little boys and took notes..mama said treat girls "right". make friends with girls..These enlightened boys are crush-worthy and more importantly us-worthy. And they deserve my recoginition...and so they have it!!!