In the middle of speaking. Wait. Speaking. The decision to speak. Why? Why did I make that decision? Wait. In the middle of speaking. The idea becomes a thing. An out of context quote. No. Wait. The idea. The thing. Say it. Say the fucking thing. Did I say it? Fuck. No. Fuck. She gives me a quick, confused look. She says yeah. Why don't I just fucking listen?
***
I'd like to say something about racism.
It's real.
Thank you for your time.
***
This Is Just To Say
I have died.
Please grieve silently.
***
This is the difference. The difference is this. We are different. This is we and we are different.
In the out-of-context context of existence, you and I and me and you and all of us, are different.
And, I would like to tell you, in the clearest way possible, that I don't fucking like it.
***
At the risk of sounding extremely ableist, I'd like to recognize the sincere struggle of very sad deaf people. I need noise. In silence. I crumble. Which is why my music is currently trying to permanently destroy my ear drums. But I'd like to issue an apology to both sad, deaf people and the me in an alternate universe who cannot hear. I'm listening twice as loud for you.
***
Your out of context existence means nothing. As well, I'd like to point out that while your in context existence means more, it still means nothing. Meaning. Tell me about meaning. So infinite. Too infinite. Lacking. Impertinent. Meaning doesn't matter. What does it do? How much work? It doesn't work without meaning. Work is tied in meaning and I am without meaning so I do nothing.
***
Jean-Louise Finch. (Who we all know as Scout.) Wears overalls and nothing else. Spoiler Alert. In Go Set a Watchmen, Jean-Louise Finch does not wear overalls. She wears dresses. Her rebellion is in her lack of makeup or some other pseudo-progressive bullshit.
I was at Nate's house the summer before my senior year of high school. Some uncle who perpetuated sexism with benevolent misogyny had the mother fucking audacity to tell me "I would learn to" like dresses, makeup, and all the other bullshit that comes with being a lady. (What's even better is that he said, "She'll learn" to Nate and not to me.) The effect, I would say, is opposite. All this bullshit about it being adorable for young girls to be tomboys but not for young ladies and women to show their masculinity is exactly that: bullshit.
Jean-Louise, who left behind the chance to be my absolute idol, to wear dresses grew up before second-wave feminism. I would respect her choices if they seemed like choices. But they don't. It seems like someone learned Jean-Louise real good.
I will tear down society and build it again. Based on one fucking principle: listen. Listen because Scout's voice was clearer and stronger than Jean-Louise's. Because I've always hated Aunt Alexandra the way I've hated the subtle cultural messages that I was wrong. Internalized misogyny and strict ideas of what a woman needs to be perpetuated by societal norms is gonna fucking stop.
In Athens, baby girls were referred to as "deformed boys" and when a mother gave birth to a baby girl, it was common to discard the child in the garbage. "Best case scenario," the child was taken out of the garbage raised to become a prostitute. If not, the children screamed and cried until they died in a dumpster. This happened so often that Athenians were unperturbed by the cries. No one listened and we need to start.
