Who are we, who is each of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? Each life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a series of styles, and everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered in every way conceivable. (Italo Calvino)
We call him Old Man sometimes. Do your old bones hurt? Which is a mildly amusing joke until he stops eating and is listless and the vet says his kidneys are failing. We've spent a week giving him IV fluids and assorted pills for appetite and nausea. He wouldn't eat, even though we tried many types of cat food. Eat your food! I'd say. I'd pick him up and press his fur to my face and then set him down next to his bowl, nonchalantly, like, it's here, just so you know. Yesterday he spent the day in my lap. The weather has turned, he probably needed the heat, he has no fat on his body. Then he ate a generous spoonful of Mixed Grill Pate. He's eating? Finally. He's eating! In the night he woke us up pawing at things, the way healthy, annoying cats do. Cat, you're the worst, I said. Stop it, I said. But I didn't really mean it. When he jumped on the bed I moved over so he could have his spot. . . It'll probably be his kidneys. They tend to fail in Old Man cats and the food he has deigned to eat isn't the special "kidney diet" that he should be eating. But in a few days I'll be 32 and in a couple weeks I'll be married and I feel like that's enough FEELINGS for the month. Keep your shit together, Loki.
#Longread: No One Thought This All-Woman's Debate Team Could Crush It
In high school, Mireille Umutoni aspired to be a club president rather than just secretary. And why not? She lives in a country where women seem to face no barriers, no discrimination.
In the Parliament, for example, women hold more than half the seats. No country has a better record than that.
And in a ranking of countries by how they had narrowed the gender gap, Mireille’s homeland came in sixth in the world. The U.S. was No. 28.
There’s just one problem: Mireille lives in Rwanda. And even though Rwanda is arguably the most pro-woman country in the world, feminism is not seen as a good thing. In fact, it’s something of a dirty word.
The killings in Dallas are one more reminder that guns are central, not accessory, to the American plague of violence.
Weapons empower extremes. Allowing members of any fringe of any movement to get their hands on military weapons guarantees that any normal dispute—political or, for that matter, domestic—can quickly lead to a massacre. Our guns have outraced our restrictions, but not our imaginations. Sometime in the not-too-distant past, annihilation replaced street theatre and demonstrations as the central possibility of the enraged American imagination. Guns allow the fringe to occupy the center.
Jeff and I got engaged in March. By which I mean he gave me a ring and we went out to dinner and, the next morning, we called our families and told our closest friends and then there was a day (or, a week, really) after which we could say, “We’re getting married!” But the moment, the day or the week, when I knew we would get married happened sometime long ago, and I can’t actually tell you when.
Except, there was one time, when we were driving in the car, to his parents’ house. It was shortly after he finished law school and we moved to Minnesota from Ithaca. That year, when I hated Ithaca and missed San Francisco, and Jeff was constantly wading through job postings in the post-recession hellscape that was the legal market in 2011, was probably our worst. Coming back to Minnesota just then hadn’t really been part of the plan and we were both still unemployed, and it wasn’t a moment when the clouds opened up or the stormed passed. But there we were, talking about who-knows-what and I had been laughing at something Jeff had said and when he turned the car I suddenly just knew. It felt a bit like seeing a familiar face in a crowd of people and starting to move that direction, even before you consciously realize you’ve stopped scanning the crowd around them, your brain catching up as you step forward.
So there was that moment, and there was the day and the week in March, and many conversations we had on evening walks, and a hundred other moments that come together to usher in the future when you’re not looking, and pretty soon I can stop referring to him as my boyfriend, hallelujah.
... & April & May & June... A primary season that would not end. Politics that feel like waves crashing over your head, then lifting you up, and dropping you back down.
The night Hillary Clinton mathematically sealed the Democratic nomination, I cried a bit and obsessively scrolled through Twitter to watch the waves of feminist relief roll through my feed. There was celebration, of course, but mostly it felt like finally. There are so few moments like that, in politics. And certainly the 24-hour constant news cycle didn’t let it last for long, not when there was an unqualified, unfiltered fascist to point a camera at on the other side, but I took it. I’ll remember it.
Some Recommended Reading from the Last Four Months:
13, Right Now, by Jessica Contrera at the Washington Post and companion piece: How to Report on the Life of a 13-year-old, at Longreads.
What Does a Lifetime of Leers Do to Us? Jessica Valenti, at the NYT
Dead Scalia Saves Unions, at Wonkette
A Journey to the Medical Underworld, by Alison Motluck
Look in the Attic, by Lauren Dupuis-Perez
Here’s the Powerful Letter the Standford Victim Read Aloud to Her Attacker, at Buzzfeed
The most thorough, profound, and moving defense of Hillary Clinton I have ever seen, at the Daily Kos
It's true that phones are addicting and distracting and likely changing the way our brains work, but it's also true that sometimes my phone is the reason I remember to stop and capture something pretty.
Ruth,
you beautiful creature,
you spin history
with your delicate fingers,
telling men to step off
our pieced-together capes
that sputter us toward
a future state –
where we live and love
and struggle together,
perhaps not in agreement,
but not saying never.
Where we endeavor to learn
each other like lessons,
tear down walls,
and temper aggression.
Girls everywhere
swoon over you,
our fantasy grandmother
who comes to our rescue.
'Many will die no matter what we do. Better them than us.'
I love the age of humorous television recaps.
As women have been doing since the beginning of time and will continue to do until Earth is desiccated by the sun, Dany and one of the Dosh Khaleen bond on the way to the bathroom. As men have been doing since the beginning of time and will continue to do until Earth is desiccated by the sun, Jorah and Daario interrupt them.
Welcome to magaretlafleur.tumblr.com, a place for random links, photos, thoughts, feeeeeelings, and monthly recaps.
Plain old margaretlafleur.com is just an online calling card, now.
Recommended Reading from February:
The Blossoming Child, by Steve Edwards, at Orion
Looking Back, Jeffrey Toobin, at the New Yorker
How I Fell in Love Over AOL Instant Messenger, by Jaya Saxena, at the Daily Dot (A companion piece to In Celebration of Old-School Live Journal, by Lindsey Gates-Markel at The Toast)
An All Caps Explosion of Feelings Regarding the Liberal Backlash Against Hillary Clinton, by Courtney Enlow, at Pajiba
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