Fifteen Years

I only have one cat now. I used to have two but a few months ago, the older cat died. He was fifteen but I am still very sad. I am keenly aware that I am experiencing this mourning as one half. I still think of my two cats as one entity, two halves of a pair. So in a way, it’s almost like the cat who died is still here.  I have lost half, but not all.  When the other cat dies, I think I will be a lot sadder, and that’s a little frightening because I’m pretty sad.

Right now, my cat is rolling around on the floor looking like a beached whale. He has almost enough personality for two. I’m glad he didn’t go first because the other cat was the needy one. I think my living cat might prefer being an only cat, in all honesty. I often wish he could tell me.

Fifteen years is a long time. Fifteen years ago I was 21 and living in Massachusetts in a 3 bedroom apartment with 4 other people. It’s hard to conceive that that person was me, and I am still me. It seems like another planet, a chapter in a book. I have old journals from then, sealed up in a box that I am afraid to open. For some reason I do not want to revisit any of that past. I cringe with embarrassment just thinking about it. Feeling sad at age 36 is uncomfortable, but not impossible. At 21 I did not feel sad, I felt a sworling vortex of despair. Or so my vague memories tell me. I could read what I wrote and find out, and I will someday, but not yet.

I wonder if other people forget all the incredibly stupid, selfish, ill-conceived, dangerous things they did in their youth and that’s why people my age seem to have become incredibly judgmental and self-righteous. Sometimes I really do wonder if having children destroys the part of your brain that remembers what it is like to be young. I know those very same self-righteous judging people did the stupid, selfish, ill-conceived dangerous things, whether they remember or not. I remember.

I have this theory that every single person, self included, has at least one belief that is just 100% wrong and they have no idea about it. Think about it. When someone is wrong, they don’t know it so why would you? And whatever it is, it’s something big.

Fifteen years ago tonight. We were probably sitting around the table in our kitchen, which served as our living room since the living room was used as a bedroom. We were probably drinking, smoking pot, and playing Rummy. Or maybe tonight was the night we went to that party and he got drunk and/or lost his shit.  Maybe, fifteen years ago tonight, was the night that my best friend, whose life felt so intertwined with my own as to be indivisible, confessed he had knocked her to the ground before. And when he got home from the party where he had caused the scene, he used his knives and swords to slash up our furniture before pinning her to the wall by her throat. Lesson 1: never trust a man with a knife collection.

All this and more is all recorded in my box of journals that I kept religiously from age 15 to 25. What an age to choose to record. Maybe in another fifteen years, I will be ready to visit my past again, but then, maybe in fifteen years, I won’t want to look at today.

No Comments

I have decided to disable comments on this blog.  I am going to be writing autobiographical posts and posts about my point of view on various issues, especially as related to feminism and my experience as a woman.

I am writing to write, as the title of this blog states.

I am not writing to argue.

Sometimes I get really tired of the comment culture we have going on now.  It used to be, you read a news article and then you just thought about it or maybe discussed it with your friends and family.  Now there’s an endless stream of people vying for attention and trying to prove that they are right in comments.  I comment on a lot of articles on Facebook and sometimes I wonder why.  Who really cares?  I doubt an internet comment has ever changed someone’s mind.

Comments are antagonistic, and I have also been guilty of this.  There’s something about a comment section that just begs you to tell people they are wrong.  A lot of people are wrong and mean and stupid and it feels good to tell them so.  On the other hand, it’s not very pleasant when you’re the target of the comments.

Look, I don’t care if you disagree with me.  I don’t care to hear the mansplaination.  I want to write about my own life and my own thoughts without the noise of people who need to prove something in the comment section of other people’s blogs or advertise themselves.

I’m pretty sure society was better before there were comments.

So you will find no comments here.  Writing to write.

Holly Lolly Wins in Erectile Dysfunction Case

Monday’s Supreme Court decision in the Holly Lolly v Sibeleus matter bars the government from forcing small companies with religious objections to provide controversial erectile dysfunction medication to its employees.

Holly Lolly, a female owned sporting goods store, is being accused of rolling back men’s rights, with claims that the high court’s ruling “jeopardizes basic health care coverage,” for male employees.

“This is a stifling decision for American men. It’s a decision that blocks men from being able to make their own health care decisions,” a prominent blogger writes “This is deeply troubling, because you have organized religions standing between a man and his doctor.”

But a closer look shows that the situation is actually quite complicated and more complex than some politicians and talking heads are making it seem.

In fact, while many are accusing Holly Lolly of restricting men’s rights to erectile dysfunction treatment, consider that the company has covered and plans to continue covering 16 of the Food and Drug Administration’s 20 approved forms of erection inducing drugs.

There were four types of ED pharmaceuticals at the center of Holly Lolly’s contentions.  According to the company’s deeply held religious beliefs, erections lasting more than one hour are an affront to God.  Therefore, they could not in good conscience offer the medications, Erectra, Stiffian, Testalis, and Bonarus, which can induce erections lasting more than the religiously sanctioned 60 minutes.

A statement on Holly Lolly’s website regarding the case clarifies their position:

“Holly Lolly is a female owned family businesses that respects the individual liberties of all their employees. We have no objection to 16 FDA-approved erectile dysfunction medications required by the law that do not induce erections exceeding 1 hour, and provide coverage for such ED medications under our health care plan. Additionally, the four objectionable drugs are widely available and affordable, and employees are free to obtain them.”

“Providing these objectionable drugs violates the deeply held religious convictions of the owners of Holly Lolly that erections lasting more than one hour are an affront to God.”

Some men argue that this decision constitutes a violation of their right to effective treatment.  The medications barred by the Holly Lolly decision are frequently prescribed to men with erectile dysfunction who suffer from severe side effects using the other drugs.  “Why should my employer be able to tell me what to do with my penis?” asked Rod Boehner, an advocate for men’s right to choose, “This is a private decision between a man and his doctor.  Employers and insurance companies don’t belong in my boxer-briefs.”

This Is

I have blogged about various specific subjects in the past, but recently I decided that I would like to create a site dedicated to writing about anything and everything that interests me.  I want to write about whichever subjects inspire me at the moment without worrying that they fit the theme of my site. From my prior experiences I have found that the subject of my blog inevitably starts to feel restrictive because my focus in life changes and morphs as time progresses.  Eventually I feel the need to move on.

I am a visual artist, but I also love to write.  I consistently kept journals in tiny decorative notebooks from age 13 to 26.  They are taped up in a box, not to be opened until an undetermined time in the future when I feel prepared to explore them.  Blogging replaced journaling.  Regardless of the form, writing has always been an expressive and cathartic activity for me.  Lately I have not been writing because I had truly outgrown my last blog to the point where I found the subject of it to be completely uninteresting.  I had nothing left to say on the matter.  I was over it.

When I change my mind and move on, I really do it.  I don’t tend to look back.

This blog is going to have no cohesive theme, except that it is written by me.  I am writing just to write.  I’m not giving any hints about what I will write about.  I will just write.