Godforsaken: Worst place/time I ever lived ('96 to '97)

I'd just graduated from San Francisco State in December 1995, then moved back to Austin. Stayed with my brother for a couple of months until I wasn't wanted any more (the first shitty sign of the shittiness to come). In February 1996, my mom kindly put down a deposit so I could move into my own cheap place. A one-bedroom duplex near Riverside Drive, an area where I knew my old girlfriend still lived. I paid $495 a month and worked temp jobs while applying for publishing jobs I never got. (I'd thought that merely having gotten a Master's degree in English would guarantee me a job. Nope.)

Uncomfortable apartment stuff: 

• There was one window-unit AC in the bedroom. It never managed to cool the living room at all. I've never been so uncomfortable in all of my life outside of my mom in Azle not allowing the AC on until the temperature hit 86 degrees.

• Lizards inundated the place, inside and out. They showed up constantly in the house and especially in the laundry-room, which I became too creeped-out to use. When I went out at night, I'd leave the porch-light on. Upon arriving home, there would be literally hundreds of lizards crawling all around the light and on the front door and door-knob. Horrific. I've never seen such a thing before or since.

Weird apartment stuff (my own fault for being stupid and/or not complaining):

• One time workers had to come inside to fix something (I can't remember what). When I got home from work that day, I saw that one of them had shit all over my toilet---in the bowl, on top of the seat, below the seat, shit was sprayed everywhere. I was too timid to call the rental agency to complain. I just cleaned it up myself.

• One time free-lance lawn-mowers showed up at my door. I needed the lawn mowed but only had a $20, not the $10 they were asking for. I gave them the $20; they promised to bring back my change! (Ha!)

Weird apartment stuff (I did complain):

• When the cable guy first came to turn on service, he ripped a big hole in the wall while installing the connection and then didn't patch it up or put a plastic cover over the mess. I told him he couldn't leave the wall looking like that and that I wasn't going to pay; he grudgingly fixed it.

• I moved out in August of '97, just days after my birthday; days before my move-out, I'd asked my brother to mow my lawn as a birthday present. Yet when I moved out, the rental company claimed the lawn hadn't been mowed and wanted to charge me against my deposit for it. I had to insist that I'd indeed gotten the lawn mowed as a birthday gift!

• After moving out because I couldn't afford the $495 per month, and after everything that the rental company took out of my deposit, I was owed a mere $20 (!) back. I think the company had 30 days to mail it to me... After 30 days, no $20. I finally contacted the company and asked for my $20. The company rep made a snarky remark on the phone about why I was so "desperate" for $20. I reminded them that I had to move out because I was too poor to pay the rent and that, yes, I needed the $20 that I was owed.

Outside World creepiness:

• My next-door neighbor was a 30-something Hispanic mother with a teenaged son. Whenever she'd be gone at work at night, the kid would invite his druggy friends over. They'd blare their music and hang out and party on the lawn outside. At times, the kids would be literally running around on the ROOF of the house. I called the cops a couple of times, but they never came.

• Christmas 1996: The neighbor that I shared the duplex with was burgled. (Probably by the kids next door, who didn't see my car there for a week and, because of the layout, broke in through a window that they thought was mine.)

• At one point, a gay guy on drugs drove his car into the wall of my bedroom and then ran away. (Found out later that he was gay because he'd left a job application at a gay club in the front seat.) The driveway of the duplex was up a hill, and the random guy somehow managed to turn off the road and up the driveway and into the wall, smashing it. (I called the police three times, telling them that someone had just crashed into the wall of my house; they didn't arrive for 2 hours. SIDENOTE: My paranoid right-wing duplex neighbor thought that the crashed car was a friend of mine blocking his parking space. So he parked right behind MY car to "teach me a lesson.")

Personal shit:

• The first man I had ever been in love with, and the only man I have ever had sex with---my boss at a job before I left for grad school in 1994---promised to meet me. We'd been having sex in 1994 for about 8 months right before I left for grad school in San Francisco, and kept in touch by phone while I was in SF, meeting during the Christmas I came home to Austin in 1994 (when we slept together in a hotel). I contacted him in 1996 after I was back in Austin in my own apartment. We had plans to get together, and he stood me up. I sat on my futon for hours weeping, picturing myself in a vortex. I'd thought he still wanted me.

• I'd run into my ex-girlfriend (my first girlfriend, and the first person I ever had sex with, in 1989) at a club. She was extremely nice to me and gave me her new number. When I called, turned out all she wanted was for me to pay a credit-card bill for around $75 from 1990 (a good 7 years ago)! I remember going outside and sitting on the bumper of my car and just weeping. I'd thought she still wanted me.

• I brought home a random guy that I'd met outside Ego's, a club where Rick Broussard/Two Hoots and a Holler had been playing. The guy asked if I wanted to do coke, and I said yes. We went back to my apartment and did coke. I had told him ahead of time that I just wanted to talk, didn't want sex. He was a hard, rough-looking guy, but he was OK with just talking and being around another person. The only moment of discomfort came after the sun came up when he put his hand on my leg, and I jerked away. He said, "Don't ever do that." It was a briefly scary moment, where I felt things could have taken a turn for the worse. But they didn't. A mean-looking guy with a sense of honor, I guess.

Oh, and my TV broke during the NBA playoffs.

Minor respites: Ted Hughes answered my letter. And I met my favorite author Mary Gaitskill at a downtown Austin hotel after years of correspondence (thus ending our years of correspondence).

To this day, '96 to early 2000 remain the worst years of my life, and this apartment epitomized everything degradingly awful and hopeless. (After this '96-'97 apartment, my next two apartments in '98-early 2000 were just about as bad, both landlord-wise and for personal reasons. The horrible spell of shitty people and places didn't break 'til the second half of 2000. In the past 20 years, however bad things have gotten, I've never even come close to being that godforsaken again.)

Tammy Wynette - Stand By Your Man (1968)

In the 8th grade, I once thought about trying out for cheerleader. I was feeling cute and popular that year and thought that cheerleaders just got the job because they were cute and popular. When I went to the first round of tryouts, however, I discovered that there were actual gymnastics involved. I couldn't even do a rudimentary cartwheel.

What does Tammy Wynette have to do with this? Singers today seem to think that they are "divas" simply because they, or their media followers, say they are. Sans any proof of actual talent. They gyrate extensively, they vocalize extensively, extending one note into 10, for example.

I saw this video tonight: One woman barely moving (with a non-ironic wig), singing astoundingly well, proving that we're not ALL divas. There ARE those among us who are much better than others.

Black Plague 2020

Wow. Really? This dramatic?
Kind of reminds me of the manufactured 2000 "Y2K crisis," when the whole country was allegedly supposed to shut down, airplanes fall out of the sky, etc.

Stay Safe!

While I was out today touching door handles and debit-card machine buttons, I heard three people call out cheerily "Stay safe!" Guess "Stay safe!" is the new "Have a good one!"

Must people always have something to send you off with? In the Middle Ages, it was "God be with ye," shortened to "goodbye." I like that better but am still irritated by people telling me what to do.

George Jones: When The Last Curtain Falls (1999)

Even though I still sting from the words that you threw at me

There's no pleasure at all from watching you fall to your knees

'Cause the tables have turned and I'm finally learning to live

And forgive and let go, there's no sweet revenge

At love's angry end and we all need to know

When the last curtain falls with a final goodbye

And the bitter cold darkness of night floods the days of our life

With a silence so loud we can't feel at all

There's no reason or cause to cheer or applaud when the last curtain falls

The irony is that you're wearing the look I once wore

And in truth I've longed for this moment to settle the score

But it's not all that clear, now that I'm hearin' you echo

The thoughts of my soul, the justice of time

Is not really mine and I want you to know...

T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

(How artists used to try to explain complicated feelings.)

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And should I then presume?

               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

               “That is not it at all,

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Bangles: Dover Beach (1984)

The Bangles: Dover Beach (1984) after Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot

If I had the time
I would run away with you
To a perfect world
We'd suspend all that is duty or required.

Late last night you cried
And I couldn't come to you
But on the other side
You and I, inseparable and walking.
We could steal away
Like jugglers and thieves
We could come and go
Oh, and talk of Michelangelo...

-------------------------------------------------------

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold (1867)

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I Said All That To Say All This (George Jones, 1998)

About as pop as George ever got, with some zydeco thrown in.

Hunkered down in Austin

I've never in my life seen bare shelves at the grocery store, even during hurricane warnings or somesuch! But last Saturday in Austin: No OJ, no tortillas (well, except a couple of stray packages of "low-salt" and "vegetarian" tortillas), no canned beans, no cereal, no spaghetti, no bread... I was kind of shocked! Luckily, I usually have about 2-weeks' worth of food around the house anyway---still have plenty to eat. But damn: Who likes "low-salt" tortillas?! (I think I would only truly panic if beer and cigarettes and Cokes disappeared.)

I'll Give You Something to Drink About (George Jones, 1996)

Tied To A Stone (George Jones, 1996)

This and "I'll Give You Something to Drink About" from the same 1996 album remind me of George and Tammy. Tammy told her biographer that she felt trapped with George, that he was both controlling and boring (!). She probably expressed something like this to George during their 6 years of marriage.

Vision Board (Ha!)

Here's what I'm "visualizing":

New L-shaped couch
New desk chair
New reading chair for the "library"

And those will come when I get my new job.

Who invented this "Vision Board" shit for stay-at-home moms? It's kind of sick, such fetishization of "wishing" sans any actual plan for realization.

I read online (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_board) that Oprah endorses the concept---Oprah, of all driven career-women! Who, despite her own achievements, still makes her living trying to make stay-at-home moms feel good about themselves...

George Jones: The Lone Ranger (1996)

Latter-day George Jones, from his 1996 album "I Lived to Tell It All." Fun lyrics, great musicians (especially that piano), classic George vocals rivaling any of his work in the '60s/'70s/'80s (with hints of the '50s---listen to how he sings particular words like "mention" and "save"). I've listened to this at least 10 times already tonight, it's so good! (Play it LOUD!)

 

I'm tired of sitting home, sick of being all alone
Thought I'd just go for a drive
I's headed downtown, when I did me a turnaround
When I saw the neon sign
Happy hour two for one, sounded like a lot of fun
So I stopped and went inside
The next thing I knew, I was sittin' on a barstool
Having the time of my life

Well, I had more silver bullets last night
Than the Lone Ranger
I was shootin' 'em down like I didn't have a care
Ignoring all the danger
Bless my soul this morning I awoke
In the arms of a perfect stranger
I had more silver bullets last night than the Lone Ranger

Did I fail to mention it wasn't my intention
To stay out all night long
I was gonna have a few but one round led to two
Next thing I knew I was gone
Well here's where I draw a blank,
The band was playin' Hank
She rode in to save the day
And all I remember was kisses sweet and tender
And hi-ho Silver away...

George Jones "Small Time Laboring Man" (1968)

In a Rolling Stone interview in 1969, Bob Dylan was asked what he thought was the best song released in the previous year. He replied, "George Jones had one called 'Small Town Laboring Man.'"

Sturgill Simpson - Call To Arms (on SNL, 2017)

SNL gets WOKE! 

What a shock to the current trendy pseudo-laid-back, over-produced hip-hop system that's been in charge for a couple of decades now. FEELING IT instead of posing. GREAT performance.

Here's the REAL version of "Tennessee Whiskey" (George Jones, 1983)

Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake - Tennessee Whiskey (CMA's 2015)

As it turns out, Chris Stapleton is also going to be taking up my parking space later this week. Another guy that I hadn't heard of. But, as several people at work told me: 

"He does 'Tennessee Whiskey.'"
Me: "You mean the George Jones song?"

Them: "No, Chris Stapleton wrote it."
Me: "Does it go: 'You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey/you're as sweet as strawberry wine"?

Them: "Yes, that's it."

Me: "Stapleton didn't write that. George didn't write it, either, but he did it back in the '80s. THAT will always be the best version!"

Now, I said all that not having heard the Stapleton version. Looked forward to listening on YouTube... Here it is: I hate it! I hate all of that vocal "trilling"! (What's a better word for "trilling"---all of the making 10 syllables out of 2...) And note to Timberlake: Face-making and trilling does not equal "soul." Please, Mariah.

Post Malone Steals My Parking Space

I work/park near Austin's Erwin Center, where Post Malone is performing Tuesday. We got a notice that we couldn't park there tomorrow because of his "event." I kinda try to keep up with music, but hadn't heard of Post Malone and said so. A couple of equally middle-aged, but Hispanic, women acted shocked at my ignorance. "Is he good?" I asked. "Yes!" they emphatically said. So I had to go look him up to see what I'd been missing. Here's a huge hit of his from a couple of years ago (he's now got tattoos all over his face, and his fans are currently afraid he's about to die of a drug overdose). But this song, "Congratulations," has a whopping 1.1 BILLION views on YouTube!

One comment that reflected the views of many on YouTube: "It’s the end of high school your at the dance with all your friends having a good time and the dance is about to end the dj puts this song on and you look back at all the memories you start tearing up." One person replied to this comment: "Dude that's hella deep."

Here's a sample of the lyrics:

My momma called, see you on TV, son
Said shit done changed ever since we was on
I dreamed it all ever since I was young
They said I would be nothing
Now they always say, "Congratulations" (uh)
Worked so hard, forgot how to vacation (uh-huh)
They ain't never had the dedication (uh)
People hatin', say we changed and, look, we made it (uh)
Yeah, we made it (uh)
They was never friendly, yeah
Now I'm jumping out the Bentley, yeah
And I know I sound dramatic, yeah
But I know I had to have it, yeah
For the money, I'm a savage, yeah
I be itching like a addict, yeah
I'm surrounded, twenty bad bitches, yeah
But they didn't know me last year, yeah
Everyone wanna act like they important (yeah)
But all that mean nothing when I saw my dough, yeah (yeah)
Everyone counting on me, drop the ball, yeah (yeah)
Everything custom like I'm at the border, yah, yah
If you fuck with winning, put your lighters to the sky
How could I make cents when I got millions on my mind?
Coming with that bullshit, I just put it to the side
Balling since a baby, they could see it in my eyes


Happy Future based on this song, Millennials!

p.s. "Post" grew up in Grapevine, Texas. He briefly attended Tarrant County Jr. College. His dad was once the concessions manager for the Dallas Cowboys. Post's take on his generation: "I think there's gonna be a lot of weird shit that happens within our generation that really changes the way of the world."

Two Hoots and a Holler Live '91 Black Cat Lounge "No Mans Land"

Rick Broussard/Two Hoots and a Holler (Austin, 1991)

Black Cat Lounge, Austin, 1991

I was in love with this guy for years. Saw him every Monday at the Black Cat Lounge for years. I kissed him a couple of times; he once bent down to tie the laces of my (purple-suede) shoe.

He rarely plays any more, and I haven't seen him in over 20 years, but I just read that he's performing Saturday at a small club only a couple of miles away from where I live (about 5 minutes by bus). I might just hop on the bus and go see!

A Feminist Against Abortion

Somehow Margaret Sanger's 100-years-ago fight for contraception rights for women has devolved into "abortion on demand." Sanger herself, whose early organizations later became today's Planned Parenthood, drew a sharp distinction between contraception and abortion, and did not support the latter. (She did, however, recognize that "back-alley abortions" were the result of her day's uninformed, moralistic views on sexuality and contraception---and that contraception was the best way to counteract abortion. She also supported eugenics: "She did not speak specifically to the idea of race or ethnicity being determining factors and although Sanger articulated birth control in terms of racial betterment and, like most old-stock Americans, supported restricted immigration, she always defined fitness in individual rather than racial terms.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

I agree completely with Sanger that contraception is, indeed, the best way to counteract abortion (a gruesome procedure). Early 1900s religious views on sexuality and contraception have long-since fallen away. We're no longer fighting the battle that Sanger was fighting, i.e., today the vast majority of people have sex before marriage, and the vast majority use contraception. Given these new societal standards, couldn't abortions be avoided by providing free universal contraception? No religious judgment, just free contraception to whoever asks for it.

Extreme religious purists might still protest that people shouldn't be having sex before marriage---but that has long since been proven untenable for the majority of society. People, and teenagers, are sexual and are always going to be having sex, regardless of the disapproval of self-elected "moral arbiters." Extreme religious groups will first have to accept this fact. (Today, having sex before marriage is a universal given; any protests to the contrary are weak and not politically influential.) Extremists might not WANT to accept the fact, but---could they do so if it meant that abortions were reduced? They've got to make this minor compromise.

As for abortions: The operation is gruesome and psychologically damaging. I don't care what Busy Philipps says. I've never had an abortion (I'm bisexual, and have only had sex with one man while using birth control, so the chances of pregnancy were low for me), but the women I know who have had abortions didn't take them lightly and were disturbed by them. It's shocking to me that such an intimate operation should today be touted as something routine and "no big deal." That's a lie propagated by radicals. Having an abortion is, indeed, a very big deal, psychologically and emotionally.

Leftists tell you that it's all about "your choice" and "your body," but in fact the operation involves ending the life of another living being growing within you. YOU know and understand and feel this, despite what academics tell you to think. (As for the radical feminist argument that men are allowed to fool around without consequences, so why shouldn't women also have no consequences? Unfortunately, "wishing" doesn't triumph over biology. Because women, unlike men, can get pregnant, we have a greater responsibility, a tougher burden. Today, unlike in Margaret Sanger's time, there's no shame in having a baby outside of marriage. And thus, a lesser argument for abortion.)

If there were free contraception and no outdated societal mores, but you still got pregnant: If you know you can't take care of a baby, you only have to carry the child for 9 months. Give it up for adoption afterwards. You might have 9 months of discomfort, but a lifetime of knowing that you did the right thing---by offering life, even to the initially unwanted.

Deal with the Devil

I know only a few women who have had abortions. All of them described the experience as extremely psychologically disturbing. Actress Busy Philipps, though, thanks her abortion (at age 15, after sex with her teenaged boyfriend) for her subsequent "beautiful" office and home, hybrid car, talk-show, and house-husband. (In the Olden Days, people spoke of "selling your soul to the Devil"---now I know exactly what they were talking about.)

Text below from townhall.com:
Actress Busy Philipps said during a pro-abortion rally she is proud of the abortion she had when she was 15-years-old because it enabled her to have her career and she will not stay quiet about it. The rally was in opposition of the case the Supreme Court was hearing about a law in Louisiana requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges to local hospitals.

"There I was sitting in Los Angeles in my beautiful office of my own late-night talk show. Soon I would be driving my hybrid to my beautiful f**king home to kiss my beautiful and healthy children and my husband, who had taken the year off to parent so I could focus on my career, and I have all of this! All of it! Because, because, because I was allowed bodily autonomy at 15," she screamed.

"I will not be shamed into being quiet. We will not be shamed into being quiet. Never again! will never stop talking about my abortion or my periods or my experiences in childbirth, my episiotomies, my yeast infections, or my ovulation that lines up with the moon," she continued to scream.

During the same rally, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) specifically threatened Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, "I want to tell you Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch: You have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price."

My Solomon cat (aka "Mini")

George Jones: The Rock (2001)