Today, almost as if he could sense what’s been on my mind lately, a guy told me to smile. Because, he informed me, “The sun’s out.”

GODDAMN IT, I HATE THESE SMARMY ASSHOLES.

And when I gave him a “seriously?” look, he said, “I mean, you just look so…” He waved his hands around his face. “Intense!” Yeah, god forbid a woman should be intense, especially when the sun is shining. Sunny days, in this douche’s nanobrain, are when girlies cast off their advanced degrees, multiple jobs, publishing deadlines, welfare checks, science experiments, grant proposals, business deals, activism, worries, woes, cares, concerns, ideas, and thoughts, so that they can rub vaseline on their teeth and skip around in halter-top sundresses going, “Tee hee! Tee hee hee! Tee hee hee hee hee! Math is hard! I like muscles! My lip gloss smells like cherries! Will you buy me those shoes?”

I finished unlocking my bike and started backing it away from the rack. “So are you studying?” he asked. (Translation: I know you’re probably intense cuz you’re a college coed, with all sorts of smarty-smart thoughts in your pretty little head! Now that I’ve endeared myself to you by acting like a patronizing smarmbot, howsabout a date with ol’ papa bear? *lipsmack tongueslurp* )

“Working,” I answered, turning away.

“Okay,” he said, using the inflection you reserve for when you offer someone something and they turn you down. On the way home, I thought of about ten thousand different responses I could have given him. Next time, I suppose.

Heads up for Long Beach residents: If you see a heavyset guy with blond hair and a bluetooth at Hot Java, it might be him. I don’t know if he’s a regular, but try to make him catch you with your brow furrowed and then give him a good kick in the nuts when he starts up.

(via Shrub.com)

This is an excellent post that breaks down how entitlement causes otherwise well-meaning men to become That Guy - the guy who believes in feminism but can’t understand how his own behavior contradicts that belief. Synecdochic organizes her analysis into six main parts: Entitlement I (women owe me conversation/affection/romance/etc.), Entitlement II (once a woman gets to know me, she’ll see that I’m awesome, so my main objective is to befriend her no matter how much she resists), Cajoling (no means maybe, or “if you give a mouse a cookie…”), Patronization (wait’ll she sees how smart I am), Dismissal (that doesn’t make sense to me; therefore, it must not be true), and Co-Opting the Argument (I was discriminated against once too, and that’s the REAL issue!).

My parenthetical descriptions are pretty snarky, it’s true, but I can honestly say that most men in my life have done at least a couple of these things, even if unconsciously. So men, please - if you care about not pissing off the women you know or would like to know, read the whole thing. Here’s my favorite bit:

…chances are, you — the guy reading this — read that sentence and said to yourself, “what do you mean, women think I don’t understand that no means no?” Because you’ve been told it over and over again, and you think you’ve got that basic concept pretty down. And you probably do, right now. But when you’re in the middle of something, when your emotions (and other things) are aroused, it’s your natural inclination to try to talk someone out of that no, because it is basic human nature to try to talk people into doing what you want them to do. And — particularly when it comes to sexual matters — that’s where the point of becoming That Guy lies.

Yes, you have to be more careful about not doing that than a woman might be. That’s because you carry the privilege in this situation. Because — okay, let’s take a potential transaction here. Let’s assume You and She are at a con, and happen to be standing next to each other in line or something. Let’s take it from your point of view:

You: [thinking: she looks stressed and tired and tense, I'd like to increase happiness in the world around me and do a good deed] Hey, wanna backrub?

Her: [speaking very sharply] No. I have to be somewhere else right now.

You: [thinking: ...wow, that was really kind of rude, I was just trying to be friendly.] Are you sure? Really, you look stressed, I’m happy to –

Her: [walks away, quickly]

Whereas the reality is, to her that might look really different:

Her: [thinking: oh God I'm tired and stressed and I don't want to deal with anybody in the world right now and oh God this guy next to me is in my space and I don't know what he's going to want]

You: Hey, wanna backrub?

Her: [instant wham of thoughts: what does he want, what is he suggesting, if I consent to accepting this and being touched what else is he going to try to talk me into, dammit, I said no and I am sick and fucking tired of having to say it sixteen times before it fucking sinks in and I so do not want to deal with this fucking shit right now because I do not have the energy to fight off yet another creepy guy hitting on me, I need to just get the fuck out of here] No. I have to be somewhere else right now.

You: Are you sure? Really, you look stressed, I’m happy to –

Her: [thinking: How many fucking times do I have to say it? Dammit, I just dealt with this shit ten minutes ago and I don't want to argue with another fucking horny jackass who's just doing this to try to get into my pants. I'd better get out of here before he starts pulling that "I'm doing this for your own good" crap even more.]

Would you believe that the very morning I read this, I had a similar encounter? I asked a guy at a neighboring table in the coffee shop to watch my things while I went to the restroom, and later, he asked me to do the same. When he came back, he made an extended joke about his notebook still being there, and I tensed up, thinking, “Fuck, is he just being nice or is he hitting on me? Did he think that by asking him to watch my stuff, I was flirting? Why can’t I just ask someone to watch my stuff? Does he now think that I’m fair game?” Sure enough, a few minutes later, he asked me what I was working on - without bothering to say “Excuse me,” or acknowledging in any way that I was busy. Because he felt entitled to my attention, which I owed him because I’d initiated contact. See how that works?

He was probably a decent guy, too. But he was That Guy.

Other things I hate:
- being told to smile
- hearing a stranger’s sob story about his ex-girlfriend, I guess because I look like the “nurturing type”
- being cuddled by a guy I met ten minutes ago
- being hit on by men 20 years my senior
- starting a conversation and then sitting through a twenty-minute monologue
- listening to a male friend talk about how whiny/screechy/annoying/bratty/slutty another woman is, although don’t worry, I’m totally cool

Get the idea?

So I’ve been conducting an admittedly glacial (teaching + grading + writing + tutoring oh you get the idea) search for bloggers interested in starting up a Jewish blog. I’ve noticed that there doesn’t seem to be an overtly Jewish presence on the feminist and anti-racist blogosphere - although if you know of a Jewish feminist blog, do link - and I’d like to create a space for activists and writers to discuss social justice issues (antisemitism, Palestinian rights, racism and sexism within Jewish cultures and communities, ally work, etc.) through a Jewish lens. I’ve got a couple of post ideas brewing, along with one other blogger already on board, and I’m hoping to go live sometime over the next few weeks.

Would you like to join us? Leave a comment and I’ll get in touch with you.

320 complaints of racial profiling and not one had merit, LAPD says

Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit — a conclusion that left members of the department’s oversight commission incredulous.

It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.

(from the LA Times)

Wow.

That’s some chutzpah right there. Those are some BALLS. Hear that, everyone? No racism in the LAPD! Nope nope nope! Now let’s go back to dancing through fields of daisies and spurting sunshine out our asses, because racism is dead!

Of course, the results are more understandable when you learn about their methods:

…officers are asked basic questions, such as whether they knew the race of the motorist before making the traffic stop and whether race was a factor in the decision to pull over the motorist.

That’s right - cops are asked if they acted based on someone’s race. “Did you pull him over because he was Latino?”

“Nopers I most certainly did not no sir!”

“Well, there you have it. Where are minorities getting these crazy ideas?”

Tim Sands, president of the union that represents officers, even threw in a lil’ strawman argument, claiming that people skeptical of the report think every complaint must be valid simply because it exists. Sorry, Fucko, but no - they’re claiming that the report is suspect because the methodology is flawed, your self-interest is high, and the findings conflict with the actual experiences of real people.

The best part? The subheading under the LA Times headline:

‘This is not a racist department,’ Chief Bratton says in defending the report.

Well, I’m convinced!

Today I got in an argument with a male friend over whether I should present as male when looking for readers to check the accuracy of my space novel. Some background: the book I’m working on is a science fiction story with four main characters, two of whom are physicists, three of whom are astronauts, and one of whom is a former fighter pilot. Here’s a transcript of my first conversation about the novel with my mother:

Me: I’m totally excited about this idea. One of my characters is an astronaut who used to be a fighter pi-

Mom: Oh, what do you know about fighter pilots? You don’t know anything about fighter pilots!

Here’s a transcript of my first conversation about the novel with my father:

Me: My new project is about astronauts.

Dad: A subject that you know… so much about.

And my second conversation:

Me: I’m reading physics blogs because two of my characters are physicists.

Dad (perhaps having forgotten the first conversation): Which you know… so much about.

You get the idea.

Now since it would be ridiculous to suggest that only fighter pilots, physicists, and astronauts can write stories about fighter pilots, physicists, and astronauts, we can assume that this isn’t the reason my parents were so dismissive; I think any reasonable person would agree that a writer can write about any subject on earth with enough research. (Does Richard Powers have a brother with a brain injury? Did Ian McEwan fight in World War II? Nuh-uh.) So why the negative reaction? Well, I’m sure everyone has already figured it out, but in case anyone out there is a little slow, just imagine how bizarre and condescending those two conversations would sound if I was a man. That’s right - CAPTAIN SEXISM STRIKES AGAIN!

Yes, we still live in a culture that believes that women are incapable of understanding traditionally masculine endeavors like science, spaceflight, and the military. Why, even the White House spokesperson claims that “men just by osmosis understand all these things [military jargon], and they’re things that I really have to work at.”

Now, combine this with the fact that manuscripts by female writers don’t get fair reads (from mslexia.com: “In a now-famous experiment by Philip Goldberg in the Seventies, manuscripts by John T McKay were consistently judged as cleverer, better, superior in every way to identical manuscripts by Joan T McKay”*) and you’ll see why I’m in a double bind. Not only am I working in a field that’s generally biased against me, I’m writing about subject matter that most people think, consciously or not, I’m unable to grasp. A book by a woman is bad enough, but a book by a woman about a fighter pilot? What a joke!

Today I was working on a scene in which one of the astronauts begins his training in a jet (a futuristic incarnation of the T-38 Talon). I realized that at some point I’m going to have to find someone to help me make sure I have all the little details right. But I could just imagine someone’s reaction to a woman requesting information about in-flight procedures and military life.

So, I wondered if it might make sense to put a male name on the emails and manuscript. I’d be honest if I was asked, of course. But… you know… I’d just go by the male version of my name.

Obviously there are other less drastic possibilities. I could seek out female readers (probably doable in the field of physics; maybe not as easy in NASA and the US armed forces). I could send out feelers to people who seem like they wouldn’t be overtly misogynist (although the bias would still be there). But I really hate the thought of crippling myself before the manuscript even finds a publisher. I hate the thought of being given substandard feedback that could hurt the novel’s already slim chances at a publisher, reviewer attention, and reader interest. I hate the thought of not being able to find any feedback at all.

But when I told my friend what I was thinking, his rejection was immediate and firm: Don’t do it. It’s deception.

So what the fuck do I do, people? If I comply with the system, my book won’t be taken seriously and my career will suffer. If I subvert it, then I’m a dirty liar and it can backfire. I’m not allowed to be a woman and I’m not allowed to be a man. I reach for those bootstraps, but it turns out I have to break a glass case and set off an alarm to get at them.

Some of you might remember that I put the project on hiatus a few months ago. I think part of the reason I got such horrendous writer’s block was because the stress of writing about forbidden subjects finally got the better of me. After doubting my ability and hearing others echo those doubts - not to mention dealing with all the normal issues involved in writing fiction - I gave in to the idea that I just couldn’t do something like this. That I’m just not qualified to attempt it.

I’m about sixty pages into this sucker and I imagine I’ve got about four hundred to go. (Oh, yeah - it’s going to be long, too. Another type of novel that women aren’t allowed to write.) I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to make it there. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know where my support is going to come from.

In other news, my agent sent out the second round today. Obviously keeping the first one a secret didn’t prevent a jinx, so I’ll go ahead and try announcing this one to the world. Seventeen publishers, including the one I used to intern for. Please, god, let someone accept my novel. Please let someone accept my novel. Please, please, please, let someone accept my novel. Please, god, please. Oh make me happy.

* One could argue that a lot has changed since the seventies; however, if you look at publishing and reviewing trends from the late nineties, you’ll see that not a whole lot of progress has been made.

EDIT: Usually I leave readers to figure out for themselves what my titles are referencing, but in this case, I’ve just found out that this post is coming up on Google before the short story it’s based on. So, the title comes from Kevin Brockmeier’s excellent new short story collection, The View From the Seventh Layer.

I recently discovered another fiction-savvy Girl Detective, known as Girl Detective. There are more of us! We’re everywhere! Oh noes! (I love internetisms.)

I also love this comment by Dawn on Girl Detective’s post linking to me:

I made up an imaginary roller derby team called ‘The Girl Defectives.’ My friend already jumped on Veronica Scars, but Nancy Drew Blood and Trixie Bedlam are still available… I’d take either. And some skates. -D

Here’s a random thought while I work up the energy to start my Monday. I’ve never been in a fight, and I realized, after seeing a documentary on female Bolivian wrestlers (I can’t find the flyer with the title, but I’ll do a more thorough search when I get home) and then watching Deathproof a few weeks ago, that I really want to. I want to box someone. I want to spar. Yeah, I’m afraid of getting hurt, but I’ve already broken my nose, so at least I know what to expect.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m never going to get a chance to fight someone. All this pent-up aggression is just going to continue manifesting itself in jogging, housework, and roughhousing with my husband against his will.

EDIT: The documentary is The Fighting Cholitas by Mariam Jobrani, and I highly recommend it.

As long-time readers can see, I’m finally figuring out this whole tag thing, but I haven’t gotten around to tagging all of my archived entries. So if you wonder why a writer only has two posts about writing, that’s why.

Also, apparently tags are different than categories, which is what I actually want? Hell.

Three years ago, I went to a jewelry store in Jerusalem and bought a tiny star of David pendant for 20 shekels - about five dollars. I was on a Birthright trip (an educational tour group for young Jews, in this case for 20 somethings), and a lot of us were buying and wearing silver stars of David, Chai charms, and Hamsa hands. I think it was partly because they were just very, very plentiful, and there’s something nice about having a Jewish symbol that you procured a mere three or four miles from the temple mount. I think it was also because the Birthright propaganda was working on us, despite our best efforts to stay level-headed. I bought the star thinking that I’d wear it occasionally; that it would go into my regular necklace rotation. I’d wanted one for awhile.

I didn’t wear it much on the trip - I didn’t want to seem brainwashed, and the rather smarmy motives behind the Birthright program were manifesting more and more each day - but when I got home, I took the necklace for a test run when I attended a poetry reading by my cousin, a Yiddish translator. I was surprised by how nervous I felt putting it on, and was blindsided by how uncomfortable I felt wearing it. All throughout the event, I couldn’t shake the feeling that relatives and other guests were talking about me, shrugging their shoulders, shaking their heads. I was aware that the star of David is usually considered a religious symbol, and even though it isn’t an inherently religious symbol, I was certain that everyone thought I was some sort of fanatic.

…even if they could somehow tell I was wearing it as a cultural symbol. Even if they themselves were religious.

I think part of my discomfort came from feeling like I was wearing the tee-shirt of the band whose concert I was currently at. Everyone there was Jewish; I wasn’t sure who exactly I was alerting to the fact of my identity. Nevertheless, I tried wearing it a couple more times in non-Jewish settings, but felt equally uncomfortable. It finally came to rest in my jewelry box, silently accruing tarnish.

Recently, I’ve begun examining why it’s been so hard for me to wear it. Yeah, partly it’s the religious thing; religious jewelry has become permanently associated, in my mind, with the crosses the Christian girls in my high school would wear. It’s become unfairly associated with dorkiness and awkwardness, self-righteous virgins, and the fundamentalists who ostracized everyone else. It’s become unfairly associated with the Pagans I knew in college who thought they could see ghosts and sense people’s emotions and control the weather by chanting. Plus, since there’s no way for people to tell that I’m not religious, I know that as long as the boundaries between Judaism and Jewishness - faith and culture, religion and secularism, belief and skepticism - are blurred, I’ll always misrepresent myself a little.

But is being mistaken for a religious person really what I’m afraid of? Maybe there are other forces at work here, deeper than a conundrum over whether to hang a bauble from my neck.

There’s Israel, for instance. I hate the thought of other leftists seeing the star and distrusting me, wondering if I’m one of them or an Israel apologist, one of those infuriating pseudo-progressives with the one blind spot they refuse to examine. But why does Jewish pride seem so intimately connected with hatred for Palestine? Have right-wing Jews really hijacked the discussion so successfully? Why can’t people learn that I’m Jewish without assuming that I’m racist? Is it because other pro-Palestine Jews are keeping their Jewishness and their progressivism separate? Or am I just projecting again?

But that’s not entirely it, either.

There’s the guy who came up to me in Paris a few months before I went to Israel. He was visibly angry (although I’d seen him before and he was a pretty gruff guy to begin with; other people who had dealt with him assured me he was just crazy). He started asking me if I was Jewish, each reiteration of the question punctuated like an accusation. I was too stunned to answer. A friend of mine assured me that I didn’t have to say anything, and the man gave up after a minute or two. I wasn’t yet aware of the widespread antisemitism in Europe, so I was naive enough to wonder if maybe he wanted to conscript me as an ally to bash Palestine; later, though, when I’d had time to process the encounter, it became obvious that he was out to pick on Jews in general.

It took me years to connect that incident to my reluctance to wear a Jewish symbol (not to mention the urge to lock my door when I put out my menorah each Hanukkah). If I’m put into such an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation just from having curly brown hair, how much more will I put myself at risk if I walk around advertising my Jewishness? Am I prepared to take on more random opponents? I’m reminded of the stories I’ve heard about Jewish activists who show up at anti-racist rallies only to be blamed for the existence of poverty (Wisenberg 54-55, Nepon 53). I’m reminded of the time a friend of mine made an offhand comment about how evil Jews are, and after I reminded her I was half Jewish, said, “Well, then, half of you is all right!”

But even that’s not really it. Because, while those incidents scare me, they also give me a thrill of angry pride.

Here’s what’s disturbing: I’m afraid of being perceived as someone who likes being Jewish. I think about my students knowing that I want them to know I’m a Jew, and I cringe. Why? Have stereotypes managed to instill in me a self-hate so deep that I can’t even perceive it? Lately I’ve been thinking about Kyle from South Park - how for years I’ve thought of him as a positive Jewish character because he goes against stereotypes. But I only recently thought to question why those stereotypes - the realistic ones, that is - are considered bad. What exactly is wrong with a Brooklyn accent or frizzy hair? Why is Kyle’s most attractive feature his ability to pass for a gentile? And why do I feel like overt Jewishness can only be associated with older generations, that I have no way to express it and still be young and hip and cutting edge? Why do I have this perception that young Jews don’t care that they’re Jewish, even though I can think of several counterexamples off the top of my head?

Does my fear of performing as a Jew come from my father and grandparents’ aversion to Judaism, as if it were an Old World artifact to be casually dismissed? Or my doubts about whether my Jewish relatives, knowing my mother isn’t Jewish, consider me legitimate? Or my fear that my mother and sister see me as the other, the daughter who was snatched up by the crazies and drifted away from her Swedish Protestant roots? Does it come from my parents’ divorce? Or lingering doubts left over from fights with my Jewish classmates in college - none of whom were conservative or orthodox - who just couldn’t stress enough that half-Jews aren’t really Jews?

Maybe it comes from my fear that, instead of claiming an identity that’s rightfully mine, I’m merely posturing. Sure, my father and sister and I did some Jewish stuff when I was a kid, but I was never bat mitzvahed, didn’t learn the Hebrew alphabet until grad school, and gathered most of my knowledge about Ashkenazi culture piecemeal as I grew up. Is culture still culture if you don’t learn it from your parents? Why can’t I get over the fact that none of my fully Jewish friends seem to feel this need to express their identity visually? I don’t want to be seen as overcompensating, as overzealous.

And how come even writing about this makes me so uncomfortable? Why can’t I shake the feeling that I want to be Jewish just because I want to be something other than your average White American, that my Jewish half has to be in conflict with my gentile half? How come, whenever something feels real, my strongest impulse is to assume it’s fake?

And all this over a five dollar pendant.

Oh, I’ve been wearing it - maybe you suspected that. But I have a feeling these issues aren’t going away any time soon.

In The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz mentions her “loud proud Jewish energy” (9). It took me a second to figure out why the phrase sounded so weird. It was because I’d never thought to connect myself to that energy. I never truly thought I belonged there.

Sources cited:
Wisenberg, S.L. Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, and Other Obsessions. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Nepon, Emily. Review of The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. Make/Shift Magazine Fall/Winter 2007-2008. 53.
Rosenblum, April. The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements. Self published, 2007. www.thepast.info.

I only rarely read Heeb, since as a pop culture magazine, it’s usually more vapid than I’d like. (Not that I don’t enjoy some vapidness every once in a while; I’ve been known to blow five bucks on Bust or Vogue.) However, I do love the idea of the Heeb 100 - a compilation of 100 important young Jews in the fields of literature, music, comedy, food, and other categories. Since Jewishness isn’t something that’s always apparent from someone’s appearance, it’s nice to get a visual representation of how awesome we are.

However, there’s one huge problem with the current hundred. Go to the site and take a look. See it yet?

Keep looking.

It’s hard to spot, huh?

Only if you’re white. Yup, there are almost no Jews of color in the hundred.

Now, this type of critique is tricky, since many people of color have light skin; there may be Jews of color that I didn’t recognize. But even if that’s the case, the numbers are still pretty fucking skewed. Where are the Black Jews, for instance? Could Heeb seriously not find a single Black Jew in the world who’s doing something the rest of us should know about? Yikes.

Some might be tempted to argue that maybe that’s just the way things worked out - that maybe, well, white Jews are more involved in the categories that Heeb picked than Jews of other races.

Well, no. I suspect that what happened instead is the work of Jews of color wasn’t taken as seriously, as usual. Also, if we were to assume Heeb made a good-faith effort to find Jews of color and failed, then we would be forced to examine the categories they created in the first place. But, since I really can’t believe that there are no Black Jews, or almost no Arab or Asian or Latino/a Jews making worthwhile music or art, I have a feeling that the editors of the roundup subconsciously filtered out the work being done by Jews who weren’t white.

Speaking of filtering out people of color, I have to admit I’m baffled by those who don’t think there’s any chance that Amanda Marcotte appropriated Brownfemipower’s work in her essay on feminism and immigration. Here’s the story: Brownfemipower has been blogging about immigration as a feminist issue for about two years. Amanda Marcotte reads Brownfemipower. But when Marcotte wrote said essay - which basically reiterates the ideas that Brownfemipower has been writing about all along - she neither cited any sources nor mentioned that other writers have already been discussing the subject. When called out for it, she said that her inspiration came from Nina Perales, not Brownfemipower - but didn’t explain why she hadn’t cited Perales, either. Problem Chylde, where I first heard about this, has the best response; Feministe has a great one, too.

A lot of people have claimed that these ideas were just in the zeitgeist. Interesting, that when a White writer has an idea, he/she (usually he) gets credit, but when a writer of color has an idea, it’s attributed to the zeitgeist. Failing to cite writers of color is a routine problem which takes many forms, from the rationalization above to the crediting of a quote to “a legal scholar” rather than the author’s name.

I’ve had my ideas appropriated by men, and I’m sure I’ve unwittingly appropriated ideas from people of color. (In fact, writing this, I can think of one time - I quoted a commenter in one of Brownfemipower’s threads as “a commenter” instead of using her name. Why did I do that? Where did that impulse come from? Why didn’t I see how bizarre it was? Brownfemipower has taken down her website, but if she brings it back, I’ll fix the error.) If we can’t admit we have a problem, we’re never going to solve it. Heeb? You fucked up. Marcotte? You fucked up. I’ve fucked up, too. Let’s fix this.

And, Brownfemipower - Please come back.

Whereas one of my classmates is appearing in this year’s Best American Short Stories anthology, my novel has been rejected by 16 publishers. (I mentioned some possible very bad news a while back, but I’ve been too depressed to talk about it.) The most positive rejection fit into the mold I’ve heard about: I really like this, but marketing’s a bitch.

For anyone out there who has published through an agent - is this, um, normal? My agent is as transparent as a concrete wall. I can’t get a straight answer out of her. One minute she’s saying that placing a manuscript is always “a process;” next she’s assuring me that “we’ll figure this out.” And meanwhile, she’s not actually sending it out again, which has me oscillating between mildly annoyed and completely panicked.

Is this normal? Or is it bad? Is it because the plot is too mundane? Is it because the plot is too weird? Is it because the plot is weird in some parts but mundane in others? Is it the prose? Is it because I’m a woman who writes about women? What can I do if I wrote the novel that wanted to be written, and it just wasn’t good enough?

When I was a junior in college, I read Diane Di Prima’s Recollections of My Life as a Woman, and this passage stuck with me:

In the early 1980s, I stood in the Metropolitan Museum, in one of those huge rooms full of old statues: that light, that afternoon light on old marble, anonymous statues stretching as far as the room, I no longer remember if they were Greek or Roman; Greek, Roman, or Egyptian, just the field of broken, yellowed marble. In that moment I saw clearly that there was no calling higher than this: to be an anonymous worker in the ranks, one of the unknown artists who from time immemorial and for all time to come have been making the beauty that is the leavening in our lives. A laborer in the ranks of artists and artisans (there is no difference here, no need to distinguish) - I saw there was no fame worthier than this.

It’s when I realize that I’m probably not going to be a big shot that I get sentimental for Marxist ideals. My friend who’s going to be in BASS received two of the fellowships I applied for; she’s going to be one of those writers for whom things come easy. She deserves the money because she’s astonishingly talented, but I wish I could have some money, too.

I just want people to read my book, you know? I think of passages that I’m proud of and I want other people to see them.