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I have absolutely no reason to post this picture. It’s just that occasionally (though not often) I grow tired of blowing smoke up my own ass, and the urge overcomes me to decorate the blog instead. Put up pretty pictures, new curtains, that sort of thing. And since I was thinking about the Chili Peppers last night, here’s the pretty:
Is Anthony wearing lash extenders there? Yeah. Totally.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Various and Sundry on January 24, 2008, 3:58 pm EST
There must be a virus going around the tubes simultaneously affecting all the middle-aged leftists, because I’m seeing a spate of blog posts from people like me who are getting a little tired of the trashing of the Clinton years.
But while most of us have just been content to gnash our dentures and do Metamucil shots until we’re blind drunk on the floor singing the last verse of “Under the Bridge,” the Left Coaster took the time to review the facts of the case:
With Clinton Derangement Syndrome being all the rage in some parts of the internets, and with continued focus on the, um, “Bush-Clinton dynasty”, I thought it would be useful to take an objective look - albeit at a high-level - at the domestic policy record of the Clinton-Gore administration in the time period of 1993-2000. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to delve into the details here - so this post is just a quick review of the most significant (in my view) Bills, key initiatives, and the most important vetoes of President Clinton during those tumultuous years.
Please read the whole thing.
(via Tennessee Guerilla Women.)
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 23, 2008, 10:36 pm EST
Obama has taken some heat for his remarks to the newspaper editors in Reno, Nevada, in which he largely repeated the Republican narrative of the past two decades: Reagan was a great president, bringing Morning in America to a country weary of the intellectually bankrupt Democratic politics of pork and sloth.
Obama is way too smart to actually believe that. But his comments in Reno weren’t about what he believes, but about what he needs to say in order to court independent voters and peel off Republican support. (Newsflash to the young’uns: Obama is a politician, kids. He’s not the saint of purity who farts rainbows.)
The more I see of Obama, the more I understand his game. He’s decided to exploit the Republican propaganda of the past 20 years, rather than fight it, in order to get himself elected. The right-wing lie that Reagan was Saint Ronnie, who won the Cold War and could leap tall buildings in a single bound? Fine, use it. The right-wing lie that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above? Fine, use it. The right-wing lie that the 60s and 70s ushered in an era of excess and we need to get back to family values and personal responsibility? Fine, use it.
The problem with this tactic is that these right-wing lies are dangerous. The lie that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above is one reason Dubya is in office. The lie that Reagan was a great president is the other. The Reagan lie, in fact, is probably the dominant political fact of the American landscape, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, dig into the tubes and read up on the Southern strategy, the Moral Majority, Iran Contra, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq, the trillion-dollar deficit, the end of the Fairness Doctrine (hello, hate radio and Fox!), AIDS, union busting, the defeat of the ERA, the assault on women’s reproductive rights — oh, geez, I could go on and on.
The meme of Saint Ronnie is dangerous. It needs to be exploded. It needs to die. Endorsing it may give Obama the mainstream appeal he personally needs to win, but at what cost to our country?
On the other hand, perhaps the fight is already lost. Perhaps the truth is already a lost cause. One of the most striking things I’ve noticed in this campaign season is the unthinking repetition by young Democrats of the “fact” that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above. Democrats saying this! It’s right-wing propaganda, but they don’t know it. Repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. The wingnut noise machine is so effective at saturating the very air we breathe that people don’t even know they’ve been brainwashed.
I recognize the pattern because that’s exactly what happened in the feminist movement. When the backlash started in the 80s, women my age realized that we were in a fight for the truth. We wanted to educate our daughters and pass on the torch, but we were up against a 24/7 noise machine that was telling them that feminists were man-hating prudes, that feminists hated sex, that feminists were just ugly girls who were jealous of the pretty girls, that pornography was empowerfuling, that Andrea Dworkin was in bed with the religious right, that all Second Wavers were vicious racist homophobes, and on and on and on.
And we lost. We lost the war for the truth. I know this, because most of the young women I see around me believe at least some of those lies, sometimes all of them. And what’s even worse, a lot of young feminists believe it too. Feminists.
I’ve seen young feminists repeat the Larry Flynt version of feminism as if that’s what really happened. I’ve seen young feminists describe the Second Wave in terms that have more to do with Rush Limbaugh than reality. I’ve seen young feminists claim that when older feminists try to knock some sense into the conversation, it’s really just sour grapes because the old hags are jealous of how young and pretty the new girls are.
I know of one professional anti-feminist who’s been haunting the fringes of the movement posing as a disaffected feminist, with a shtick that is largely a rehash of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Christina Hoff Sommers. Her story is that she used to be a feminist but all the ugly girls were jealous of her because she’s so pretty, plus all the feminists were sex-hating prudes and evil censors who were intent on squelching her “voice” (feminists love to talk about “voices”). I doubt if there’s a feminist over 40 who can’t peg this person as a ringer from 10 paces off — we’ve been here before, kids — but a lot of young women who encounter her think she’s for real. Ooh, they were mean to you because you were so pretty? It’s sobering testimony to the power of the backlash.
To the power of propaganda.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Recommended, Election 2008 on January 22, 2008, 7:08 pm EST
To the editors in Reno:
“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
To Hillary in tonight’s debate:
“I didn’t say they were good ideas!”
Here’s the early fireworky part of the debate:
I suspect that reaction to Obama’s Reagan-love is going to break along age lines. If you were a child or just a gleam in somebody’s eye during the 80s, then it probably won’t bother you at all. Just some dead guy, yadeyadeyade, Obama was just talking about change agents, ancient history, no big whoop.
But if you were an adult, and you remember that Reagan was the precursor to Bush — a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, imperialistic, corrupt, 100% nasty piece of work who did untold damage to this country and to the world and cost the lives of god knows how many — then you might have a little more trouble.
(Reno quote and debate video both via Talking Points Memo.)
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 21, 2008, 10:44 pm EST
Via Tennessee Guerilla Women. Thanks to the folks at TGW for posting this, because otherwise I never would have seen it. The TV and I, we’re no longer together.
Imagine what it would be like if all TV journalism were like this. The thing is, I remember when it kinda was. When the news meant 30 minutes with Walter Cronkite, and then PBS with some thoughtful in-depth analysis.
Nowadays we have Fox News and its clones. It’s not news; it’s a 24-hour game show with a drum track. Why does the news need a drum track, anyway? There’s one show my Dad watches that actually has sound effects, like blooper noises for people they don’t like (Hillary).
I remember when the movie Network came out. The acting was superb, the script memorable, but in my youthful naivete I found the plot too unbelievable for the whole thing to function effectively as satire. It was too silly, I thought; the news would never degenerate into something that ridiculous. Ha. Howard Beale would be an improvement over what we’ve got now.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 20, 2008, 7:09 pm EST
Brenda Santiago, a housekeeper at nearby Harrah’s hotel and casino, arrived shortly before Noon. Although she is a member of the Culinary Workers Union, which supported Mr. Obama, she said she had been determined to choose her favorite candidate on her own.
And that, she said, was Senator Clinton.
“I have my own opinions,” said Ms. Santiago, 46. “Hillary has more experience – and she has Bill!”
[snip]
The Clinton corner, dominated largely by women, cheered when the results were announced.
Very interesting. Very, very interesting.
And oh yeah, Mitt Headroom is now president of both Michigan and Nevada. Can anyone stop his mad winning streak? I’ve just been reviewing the Tom Cruise video situation, and I feel that the best thing for everyone concerned would be for Mitt to put Tom on the ticket as his running mate. It just feels right to me.
Meanwhile, down in South Carolina nobody can vote because it’s snowing. It’s a fact, folks: people in the South cannot deal with snow. One winter in Alabama* we got an inch of snow and the schools were closed for a week.
*I hasten to assure everyone and her sister that I am not from Alabama. However, my family was forced to live there for a couple of years in an off-grid concentration camp after several relatives were indicted for counter-counter-Soviet espionage.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 19, 2008, 5:22 pm EST
Clinton supporter Robert Johnson has apologized to Obama for referring to the latter’s drug use. That’s cool. I’m good.
So when is Jesse Jackson Jr. going to apologize for saying Hillary was crying about her hair? Jackson is the co-chair of the Obama campaign, and he went on national TV to make a sexist crack that Hillary never cried about Katrina but broke down in tears over having a bad hair day. Has he apologized? If he has, please let me know. I’ve missed it.
By the way, here’s what Robert Johnson originally said about Obama:
“As an African American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues — Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book — when they have been involved.”
And this is what Obama said in his book about what he was doing as a young man: ‘Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though.’
Johnson’s remark may have been unnecessary, but it wasn’t untrue. The Clintons have been longstanding supporters of the black community. Obama did do drugs in his youth — said so in his book.
In contrast, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s absurd claim that Hillary was crying over her hair was a 100% fabrication.
Look, I’m glad that Johnson has apologized. I’m just waiting for Jesse Jackson Jr. to do the same. I want both campaigns to stay far away from any race-baiting and gender-baiting.
Updated: I added “Jr.” so it would be clear I’m referring to the son, the one who’s campaigning for Obama.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 17, 2008, 4:42 pm EST
Pastor Huckabee at a campaign stop:
I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.
See it for yourself in Living Color:
Oh please oh please oh please oh PLEASE let this man be the nominee.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics on January 16, 2008, 5:27 pm EST
This primary season is full of firsts. The first caucus to be won by an African-American with a serious shot at the nomination! The first primary to be won by a woman on a major party ticket!
And now, the first primary to be won by an electronic simulacrum of a human being!
Yes, Mitt Headroom and his injection molded plastic hair have won Michigan. Truly our nation is becoming the land of equal opportunity, where anyone — white, black, male, female, organic, inorganic — has a chance to become President.
And even more exciting: Giuliani beat Uncommitted by, like, 1%! Obviously Uncommitted didn’t go to enough 9/11 funerals.
Now I’m just praying for Pastor Huckabee to take South Carolina. All those people at the World Redemption Outreach New Day Glory Prayer Center or whatever they’re calling the mega-churches nowadays, the people who actually believe that “the most pressing issues” facing our nation are zygotes and gay sex? Yeah. Come on, folks. Bring it home. Baby needs a new pair of shoes.
I’m sorely tempted to go down to South Carolina and visit my relatives for a few days. Pass out some Huckabee flyers. Last I heard it’s a close race between Preachy, Sleepy, and John “War Without End” McCain. Compelling choices, all.
Meanwhile, Hillary did great in Michigan, though you’d never know it from the coverage. This is a perfect example of how the media creates the news rather than reports it. Going in it was understood that if Hillary actually lost against Uncommitted it would be a huge embarrassment; the expected scenario was for her to win by a somewhat larger margin than in New Hampshire but with there still being a significant Uncommitted vote by Obama and Edwards supporters. And that’s what happened, except that Hillary’s margin was actually fantastic. I think she came in at about 56%, which is great.
Nevertheless, the media is determined to stick to the down-with-Hillary script. African-American voters preferred Uncommitted (which means Obama) two-to-one over Hillary, and the youthful demographic still went for Uncommitted (mostly Obama). Well, why not? Hardly surprising. The primary season has just gotten started, and it’s a fight. The nominee will almost certainly be either Clinton or Obama, and neither candidate’s supporters is giving up anything yet. Even Edwards’ supporters are still kind of hanging on, though I think he’s done.
But the media is spinning Michigan like it’s the end for ol’ Hills. The headline in the Washington post is, I shit you not: 44 Percent Vote Against Hillary. It’s infuckingcredible. The woman didn’t even campaign in Michigan, this is only the second primary, Obama has tremendous national support, Edwards is still in the race, the Obama and Edwards supporters in Michigan deliberately voted Uncommitted — and she still walked with 56% of the goddamn vote. Yet the media is spinning it as a failure.
Who told that old Clinton joke here the other day? About Bill walking on water and the next day’s headlines reading, “Clinton can’t swim?” Yep.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 16, 2008, 1:59 am EST
Is he a secret Twisty fan? Every time he comes out with one of these pieces I wonder.
With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. Where has everybody been?
If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.
Little attention is being paid to the toll that misogyny takes on society in general, and women and girls in particular.
Its forms are limitless. Hard-core pornography is a multibillion-dollar business, having spread far beyond the stereotyped raincoat crowd to anyone with a laptop and a password. Crowds of crazed photographers risk life and limb to get shots of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears without their underwear. At New York Jets home games, men regularly gather at Gate D to urge female fans to expose themselves.
And he keeps going. Violence against women, the cult of the Dead White Female, the incredible degradation of prostitution in Nevada, sexual assaults on women in the military, advertising that glorifies rape and abuse.
Should we be grateful that there’s at least one writer at the New York Times who gets it? Or furious that there’s only one writer at the New York Times who gets it?
I’m in a good mood at the moment, so I’ll be grateful.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Gender Issues, Politics, Election 2008 on January 15, 2008, 5:32 pm EST
From Jezebel (via FLP). Anecdotal, but they’re the same anecdotes I’ve heard from countless young women.
In a similar vein, after reading this post and thread at Feministing the penny dropped on what’s behind the “Yes Means Yes!” thing. Rape porn has become so ubiquitous that even normal regular everyday boys-next-door think that having sex with your girlfriend means raping her. These guys start whacking off to rape videos when they’re 11 and that’s what they think sex is, forcing it down her throat, calling her bitch, saying choke on it, just like in the porn flicks. Rape has become totally normalized.
Over on another board the college-age girls are commiserating with each other. All the guys they know talk about women’s pancake breasts and meat curtains and flappy lips. A neverending dissection. A coroner’s table. My boyfriend always just wanted me to act out whatever was in the video, he never even looked in my eyes and I have to stop reading.
Dear God in the Smoking Lounge, I’m so glad I’m old. I’m so glad my youth happened before porn ruined sex. I feel so sorry for the young women today, young women longing for love. My heart aches for them. They’ll never know, will they? Unless they hook up with a Samoan or an Inner Mongolian or maybe a Mosuo boy from Lake Lugu. They’ll never know how salty-sweet lovemaking can be. The tenderness of it, the radical intimacy, the surprise. The trust. A two-souled secret journey.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Pornography on January 14, 2008, 9:48 pm EST
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on January 13, 2008, 4:28 pm EST
How pernicious is sexism in American life? So pernicious that the media and the pundits and a large segment of the population, it seems, are determined to pretend — to us or to themselves — that it doesn’t exist. Ergo, the shameful treatment of Hillary Clinton in the press, and the determination of women to vote for her, has nothing to do with sexism. Because sexism doesn’t exist. Not in America.
In the wake of the New Hampshire primary, the punditocracy went nuts trying to figure out why so many women voted for Hillary and why the press didn’t see it coming. The New York Times inadvertently stumbled into part of the answer with this article: Women’s Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism. Not “Women’s Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Crying Jag,” because that didn’t happen. No, women’s support for Clinton rose because they were fucking FED UP with the misogyny of the press, which reached a tent-pitching crescendo in the crucifixion that followed the so-called “crying.”
See, that’s the problem with being a journalist nowadays: occasionally, in the course of investigating stories, you actually happen upon the truth. This is inconvenient if the truth doesn’t correspond to the dominant media bullshit, and the dominant media bullshit in this case is that sexism doesn’t exist and everybody in America despises Hillary almost as much as Chris Matthews does because she’s Satan with a Vagina, that’s not opinion, just fact, no sexism here at all.
Notice that the Times was already hedging with the headline of the article: “perceived” sexism. Women perceive sexism, though the Times can’t go so far as to say it actually exists. Women just think it’s there, probably when they’re having their periods. But who really knows? It’s like Sasquatch, or UFOs maybe.
That women in New Hampshire and the country reached the breaking point with the unremitting misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton is almost certainly the truth, and probably accounts for a good deal of her last-minute support. (That and the fact that many women deeply long to see a woman in the White House, even if Hillary’s politics render them ambivalent about supporting her openly.)
But this narrative — this truth — must not be allowed to stand. Because sexism doesn’t exist, see? So a competing narrative has taken shape, one far more to the liking of the sexist media. And in the grand tradition of Dude Planet, the narrative designed to discount the possibility of sexism is, in itself, mind-bendingly sexist. Actually it’s just a continuation of the one the media was already working on before the primary, the one where Hillary broke down crying on camera, either from womanly weakness or because she’s a stone cold manipulative bitch, take your pick. Page Two of this narrative is that the women of New Hampshire saw the tears and instantly started lactating or something, then rushed to the polls to vote for poor Hillary out of sympathy, because that’s what women do, see? They cry and they moan and they don’t really understand the issues or the world or anything, that’s complicated guy-stuff, they just gather in the menstrual hut and sniffle and watch Oprah and hug each other.
The media loves that narrative. They want it to be true. It doesn’t matter that it’s not true, because our media isn’t about truth anyway.
As for the business about how what women were actually responding to was the sexism leveled at Hillary, especially by the media itself and especially after the tears nonsense — gone. Into the memory hole. Never happened.
The New York Times made it official today with its lead political article: The Crying Game. Watch how it’s done, in three easy paragraphs:
Paragraph 1:
“I’m not prepared to concede that there are Americans who decide based on who cries,” he said, referring to Mrs. Clinton’s misty-eyed response to a question in Portsmouth the day before. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think that is quite possible.”
Translation: Granted, at first some people weren’t buying the Crying Narrative (including this very paper three days ago but god forbid we should say that out loud).
Paragraph 2:
In the days since then, commentators, analysts and pollsters have offered more sober explanations for why the polls favoring Barack Obama were so misleading. Maybe race was a factor that polling couldn’t account for. Maybe voters leaning toward Mrs. Clinton were wary of showing their hands to pollsters. Maybe the Granite State had one of its customary contrarian convulsions.
Translation: Could have been racism, could have been reticence, could have been Yankee contrarianism. What? The sexism of the media and the anger of feminist-minded voters? That we reported on in this very newspaper just three days ago? Never happened. Sucked into the memory hole. Sexism doesn’t exist.
Paragraph 3:
Any or all of those factors could have contributed to the surprise result. But social scientists say that the pop-psych 101 hypothesis — linking emotional breakdowns to ballots — cannot be dismissed so easily.
Translation: Aaaaannnd drum roll, please. Social scientists say…and you can fill in the rest. Sob fest, breast leakage, menstrual hut, sympathy. Probably some daytime TV in there too. Crying Narrative ROOLZ!
Sexism? Doesn’t exist.
Having disposed of the unpleasant-but-brief confrontation with its own foam-dripping misogyny, the media can return to its comfortable rut: Obama is the voice of change, Hillary’s a shrew whom no one really likes. And sexism doesn’t exist.
Over at the Washington Post this tactic is on full display in Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as The Great White Hope:
Obama’s Jan. 3 triumph let loose a giddiness bordering on exhilaration among voters and, especially, media commentators, who hailed his triumph as “historic,” even though he was not in fact the first African American to win a major presidential nominating contest. (Jesse Jackson won 13 primaries and caucuses in 1988.) By contrast, when Clinton overcame long odds to become the first woman in U.S. history to win a major-party primary, no leading news outlet trumpeted this landmark feat. Many failed to mention it at all.
A promising start, right? You’d think the writer would go on to examine why Hillary’s ground-breaking run isn’t being treated as the revolution that it is.
But no. According to the preferred narrative, only Obama is revolutionary. Hillary’s just sloppy seconds:
Many of the voters and pundits who were thrilled by Obama’s compelling Iowa speech 10 days ago remain intoxicated, heady with the hope that he can deliver not just “change” — any candidate running would do that — but a categorically different kind of change from Clinton or the Republican candidates. So what explains the magic?
The most obvious explanation is Obama’s stirring oratory, with its notes of generational change and unity. The key to his seduction, though, resides not just in what he says but in what remains unsaid. It lies in the tacit offer — a promise about overcoming America’s shameful racial history — that his particular candidacy offers to his enthusiasts, and to us all.
And that’s it. That’s the extent of the analysis. Obama’s election would be revolutionary, and that’s why people are enthusiastic about him and not Hillary. And granted, it would be revolutionary, no doubt about it. Our country’s racist legacy is deep and ugly, and the election of the first African-American president would stand as a magnificent milestone in our rocky and ever-faltering path towards a more just society.
But there is not a single line in the entire article about how electing the first woman president would also be revolutionary. Not a single line about our country’s history (and most of civilization’s history) of female oppression; about the yearnings of generations of women for a voice and a representative and a leader who looks like them; about the breakthrough that all true progressives long for — men and women both — to a world where gender is no barrier; about the potent symbolism of a woman (finally) as President of the United States. Not a single line.
In other words: electing the first black president? Transcendent, transformative, profoundly symbolic. Electing the first woman president? Eh.
Because sexism doesn’t exist.
Even Newsweek sounds the same note:
This year Barack Obama is either a smooth but insubstantial media-created savior, or he is the embodiment of hope and change whose election would transform America, redeeming us from our racial sins. And Hillary Clinton is either the boomer Daisy Buchanan who has ruthlessly plotted her way to power so that she can bring about a liberal utopia, or she is the hardworking, experienced policymaker and advocate who knows how to fight the good fight in Washington.
Notice how the parallelism falls apart? Obama can potentially redeem us from our racist sins, but Hillary’s just another policy wonk. And this in an article that, schizophrenically, nods to the possibility of the first woman president as being something vaguely appealing. But not revolutionary. Not something that would serve as a powerful symbolic redemption of a shameful history.
Because sexism doesn’t exist.
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Gender Issues, Politics, Election 2008 on January 13, 2008, 1:01 am EST
Ella’s still a puppy in that picture; you can tell. Look at that face! And those ears. A good breeze and she’d lift right off.
Meredith is so proud of her, beaming big and happy, her arm around her girl. The diploma says Super Dooper Dog Training…something, can’t make it out. And the diplomate is Ella Emerson. Meredith’s doggie daughter. I bet it’s Ella’s graduation from puppy class. They’re so happy. Freeze them in that moment; keep them there forever. Don’t move.
Every time I look at this picture I cry. I know it’s in poor taste to pay too much attention to Yet Another Dead White Woman. There are a lot of dead people in this world. Lot of dead people, most of them not young white women. A whole lotta hurt in this goddamn world.
But it’s the dog. A woman and her dog.
A woman and her dog.
I’m a woman and I have a dog and I used to have two dogs and my girls are everything to me, oxygen and love and sweetness, and I’ve gone hiking with my girls in the woods and I know how Meredith felt, I know what happened, how it was out there with Ella happy and free and hi! what’s your dog’s name? and one time when I was a little younger than Meredith was when she died I was chased by a crazy man in the woods but I got away, I got away, but Meredith didn’t. And Ella barking, I can see her now, barking, Mom! What’s wrong! Mom! Mom! Mom!
I can’t help it. This picture destroys me.
Listen: it happened when I was 20 years old. I used to go hiking by myself in the state park near my house. It never occurred to me that this wasn’t safe. It was only a 6 mile hiking trail that looped around a reservoir; it wasn’t like being out in the middle of nowhere. I would park my car near the trailhead and set off, arms swinging, breathing deep, making up stories in my head about the Civil War soldiers whose bones and blood and bullets were sunk into the ground beneath me. I never once worried about being safe.
Until it happened. Until the day I needed to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait. There was no one else on the trail, but I moved several yards off the path into some bushes before I squatted down. When I stood up I saw him. I don’t know if he’d been there all along or if he’d been following me at a distance, but now he was standing a hundred feet away, staring at me. And I knew I was in trouble because he ducked down behind a tree. Like he thought maybe in that split second I hadn’t seen him. Like he thought maybe he was still hidden.
I turned back to the trail, deliberate-like, not running, trying not to be scared. Nothing very bad is happening here. I’m just going to continue on my hike. I will continue on my hike and I will drive home and I will make dinner. When I reached the trail I turned around. He was following me.
I started to run lightly, just lightly, just kind of speeding up here a little, not panicking yet, okay? I’ve just decided to jog the trail today, that’s all that’s happening. I will run today instead of hike. But I could hear him behind me. I turned around and he was running and his face was contorted and he was chasing me now, yes, he was chasing me
I ran. I put my head down and ran like I never knew I could run. I was the wind. I was an Indian brave, I was in a western from my childhood, just run, swift and silent, you’re the wind, you can do this, you must do this you will do this you will get away you can do this just run run run run run
I whipped my head around and he was behind me, thudding, pounding
run run run run run run run
I don’t know how long it took me to reach the reservoir. I don’t know how long I ran. I don’t know at what point I finally lost him. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles, and running at full speed it could only have been a matter of minutes. How long did it take? Half my life, at least. That’s how long.
When I reached the reservoir I collapsed on the wooden bridge. There were other people in the distance, chatting, looking at the birds, the kids bouncing up and down on the planks. I watched the woods, waiting for him to come out.
He didn’t.
Now here’s the funny thing, the reason I know that people become insane when they’re in shock: I didn’t tell anybody what happened. It was like I still had to be silent and secret to get away. I walked to my car like nothing had happened. I drove home and went inside my apartment and lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Only then did it occur to me that perhaps I should report the incident to the police. And I hesitated because I thought — I actually thought, in my crazy shock-addled brain — that somehow I had brought it on myself by squatting to urinate in the woods. Better not tell the police that. Totally insane.
No, nothing ever came of it. No, he was never caught, and no, I never heard anything more about it.
And I never went hiking alone again.
Oh, women can’t do that my sluggish brain finally processed after some 20 years on the planet. Oh. I see. I thought I was a normal person. But I’m a woman.
It was only later, when I got a dog, that I felt safe again. My Katie and I went everywhere together. We toured the national parks and deserts and wild places west of the Mississippi, hiking everywhere we could. Almost ran out of gas on Pine Ridge, me gripping the wheel on the gravel road, and Katie watching me watch the gas gauge, a zillion miles from the nearest station. I have a picture of Katie in the Badlands, facing into the giant prairie wind ruffling her fur, eyes narrowed against the blowing dust. At the Bonneville Salt Flats I worried about her feet — is salt okay for dogs’ feet? — but she liked it. Salt is cool to the touch. Still, when we got back to the car I bathed her paws with the water from our jug. She watched me wash and dry her feet, the way she watched me do everything. Patient, curious. My daughter.
She used to tell me when she wanted a drink during a hike. I’d sit down on a rock and open my little bottle of water, and if she wanted a sip she’d nudge me and sort of lick her lips. If she didn’t, she didn’t.
On the beach at Carmel Katie herded the waves. She’d never seen the ocean before and the whitecaps excited her to a frenzy. Did she think they were sheep? Did moving white things stimulate some genetic switch in her brain? Must herd moving white things. I would sit in the sand, my heels dug in, savoring a hot coffee, while Katie wore herself out, running up and down the beach, barking at the surf. Bark. Bark. Bark. She’s gonna get it under control, people would say, giggling, friendly. Strangers videotaped her. She was a star.
That was the apex of my life, though of course I didn’t realize it at the time. I bet nobody ever does. My dog, my love, on the beach of the Pacific Ocean, my feet in warm sand, long glinting rays of sunlight in late afternoon.
In the deep pine forests of the north ridge of the Grand Canyon, night fell and we were alone, but I wasn’t afraid. Even Vegas at night on the strip — it was just another hike for me and Kate. Some Lakota boys I met dubbed us Woman And Dog. Woman And Dog, safe and strong and happy.
Then Molly came along and we were three, three girls out for a hike. In the woods of North Carolina. In the woods of Maryland and Virginia. In the woods. See, when you have dogs, the world is a good place. And other people with dogs, they’re good too. Dog people are good people. You smile at each other, big expansive smiles, arms open to the world. You let your dogs play together.
Is that a boy or a girl? What’s his name? Dandy? Hey, he and Ella like each other!
Posted by The Ghost of Violet under Various and Sundry, Recommended on January 12, 2008, 12:57 am EST
